Several OU faculty members were recognized with awards during the Research, Innovation and Engagement Town Hall on Oct. 24. (Photos courtesy John McTaggart Photography)
Dr. Andrei Slavin (second from left), chair of the Department of Physics, accepted the Frank Giblin Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of Dr. Yang Xia, a distinguished professor of physics. He is pictured with James P. Lentini, D.M.A., provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs; Frank Giblin, professor of biomedical sciences and director of the Eye Research Institute; and Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, M.D., president of Oakland University.
Dr. Randal Westrick (center), an assistant professor of biological sciences, was recognized with the Researcher of the Year Award on Oct. 24. He is pictured with James P. Lentini, D.M.A., provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, and Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, M.D., president of Oakland University.
The Most Research Active Award was presented to Dr. Zissimos Mourelatos (center), a professor of mechanical engineering, on Oct. 24. He is pictured with James P. Lentini, D.M.A., provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, and Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, M.D., president of Oakland University.
Dr. Xiangqun Zeng (center), a professor of chemistry, was presented with the Most Active Grant Seeker Award on Oct. 24. He is pictured with James P. Lentini, D.M.A., provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, and Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, M.D., president of Oakland University.
The Most Active Grant Seeker Award (honorable mention), was presented to Dr. Colin Wu (center), an assistant professor of chemistry, on Oct. 24. He is pictured with James P. Lentini, D.M.A., provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, and Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, M.D., president of Oakland University.
Dr. Laurel Dolin Stevenson (center), an alumna of the PI Academy and an assistant professor of interdisciplinary health sciences, was presented with the Outstanding Junior Investigator Award on Oct. 24. She is pictured with James P. Lentini, D.M.A., provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, and Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, M.D., president of Oakland University.
October 26, 2018
The Research Office at Oakland University hosted its second Research, Innovation and Engagement Town Hall on Wednesday, Oct. 24 and presented awards to several OU faculty members in recognition of their outstanding research and initiative.
“The faculty we recognized are all successfully competing at the highest level nationally for funds to support their work and their students, and we wanted to recognize their accomplishments,” said Dr. David Stone, professor of health sciences and philosophy, and chief research officer at OU.
This year’s award categories included:
• Frank Giblin Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes faculty members for their notable research accomplishments during their career at Oakland University and is named in honor of Dr. Frank Giblin to recognize his remarkable career in the Eye Research Institute.
The award was presented to Dr. Yang Xia, a distinguished professor of physics, who has received $7.7 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health since 2005. During his career. Dr. Xia has been a reviewer for more than a dozen NIH (National Institutes of Health) panels and 20 national and international journals since 1998. He has nearly 100 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters from his lab since 1997, and nearly 60 of these publications have students or postdocs as co-authors. In addition, Dr. Xia mentored a graduate student who received the prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
• Researcher of the Year Award, which was presented to Dr. Randal Westrick, an assistant professor of biological sciences. The award recognizes the faculty member who has received the largest amount of grant funding in the fiscal year.
Dr. Westrick has received an R01 Award from the NIH, totaling $1.8 million. The R01 Award provided funding for Dr. Westrick’s project, Thrombosuppressive Mechanisms of Novel Mouse Mutants Discovered Through an ENU Mutagenesis, which works to help identify genes that decrease susceptibility to blood clotting in mice, and explores whether those genes could one day lead to therapies designed to prevent life-threatening blood clots in humans.
• Most Research Active Award, which is presented to faculty members who have been awarded the highest number of new grants during the fiscal year. The award was presented to Dr. Zissimos Mourelatos, a professor of mechanical engineering.
Dr. Mourelatos has received several grants, which provided funding for his work on automotive R&D with a focus on reliability and efficiency. The grants were provided by Fiat Chrysler Automotive, LLC; Hyundai Mobis Company; TACOM; the Department of Defense; and the University of Michigan.
• Most Active Grant Seeker Award, which was presented to Dr. Xiangqun Zeng, a professor of chemistry. The award is given to the faculty member who has submitted the highest number of grant proposals to federal agencies in the fiscal year. This is the second year Zeng has been the top recipient of the award. She submitted 10 proposals in fiscal year 2018, beating her own record of nine proposals last year.
• Most Active Grant Seeker Award (honorable mention), which was presented to Dr. Colin Wu, an assistant professor of chemistry. Dr. Wu, an alum of the PI Academy, submitted seven proposals in fiscal year 2018, including proposing projects to the NIH, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, Michigan Space Consortium and the Sloan Foundation.
• Outstanding Research Department Award, which honors the department that has received the highest amount in research funding in the fiscal years, was presented to the Department of Biological Sciences. This is the second year that this department has won this honor.
This year, the Department of Biological Sciences Department garnered more than $2 million in research funding. These grants — provided by the NIH, EPA/Trout Unlimited, Eversight, Golf Ball Drivers Alliance and Ironic Chemicals, LLC — were used to support five major projects.
• Outstanding Junior Investigator, which was presented to Dr. Laurel Dolin Stevenson, an alumna of the PI Academy and an assistant professor of interdisciplinary health sciences. The award is given to a junior faculty member who had notable research accomplishments in the fiscal year.
Dr. Stevenson received $56,000 in funding to support her research on local community health initiatives. The funding was provided by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation, and the Oakland County Health Division.
In addition to presenting the awards, Dr. Stone also highlighted some of the initiatives undertaken by the Research Office in recent years, including:
• The PI Academy, which graduated its first class of 30 faculty last spring and has taken on its second class of 30 faculty this year.
“Last year’s participants received world class scholars and researchers as mentors, almost all of whom came to campus last spring and made a presentation to our student and faculty,” said Stone, noting that mentors came from prestigious institutions including MIT, Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, the NIH, and the Oakridge National Lab.
• Advanced Research Methodology Services (ARMS) Unit, which will feature a team of methodological experts from across campus who will be available to assist faculty with specific elements of the research design and methods of their grant proposal.
“They will help faculty think through what they’re doing so that it is cutting edge and will help them write it into their proposal so that it is clear to reviewers,” Stone said. “They will do this for free in exchange for faculty writing the ARMS Unit into their proposal to do at least some portion of their analysis is their proposal gets funded.”
• The Soundings Series, which helps faulty take their research out of the lab and field and into the community to engage larger public audiences.
“It was a great success last year,” Stone said. “Dr. David Dulio is up next in November to talk about how academic talking-heads differ from political and journalistic talking heads.”
• The I2B Program, a joint effort between the School of Business Administration and the Research Office that brings student teams together to assist entrepreneurs and their startup companies.
“(I2B) has formed a solid platform for what we hope will be more forms of student engagement with the entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Stone said.
Looking toward the future, Dr. Stone said the next goal of the Research Office will be to launch an industrial research and development (R&D) accelerator program through the university’s business incubators in Macomb and Oakland counties.
“The intent is to work with mature industrial companies in the defense corridor and the auto industry and engage faculty and students to help these companies advance their own innovation efforts and bring an entrepreneurial culture to some of these companies,” he said.
More information can be found in the Annual Research Report, which is released each fall and provides details about sponsored projects and activities for the prior year. The report can be found on the Research Office website at www.oakland.edu/research.