October 12, 2006
Contact: Jana Smith
405.744.5827
jana.smith@okstate.edu
OSU honors outstanding faculty for research excellence
Lin Liu, Laura Hubbs-Tait, Hongyu Wang, James F. Cooper, Lionel Raff,
John B. Solie,
Dan S. Rickman (Not pictured, Don Lucca, Craig W. Stevens)
STILLWATER , Okla. —OSU recognized outstanding faculty for excellence in research during Fall Convocation in Stillwater on October 12. The 2006 Research Distinguished Research Awards honor faculty for outstanding and meritorious achievements in research. The nine award winners have demonstrated continued excellence in research throughout their academic careers and have received national and international acclaim for achievement in their respective fields of study.
John B. Solie, Professor, Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering
Dr. Solie leads the research team that developed the revolutionary “Smart Sprayer” that uses optical sensing of plant status to guide variable-rate application of nitrogen fertilizer while driving the machine across the field at speeds of 10-15 miles per hour. The cutting-edge “GreenSeeker” technology has been licensed to a private company and is in commercial production. Dr. Solie's research has had major economic impact in Oklahoma . He is truly an outstanding researcher with a sustained record of distinction.
James F. Cooper, Jr., Professor, History
Dr. Cooper has made significant contributions to the study of early American history, particularly religious culture in colonial New England . He sparked a renewed interest in colonial church records. Early congregational churches were utopian experiments, a basis for settlement, and indicators of the development of religious and social institutions, their nature and evolution have been topics that have attracted historians for decades. He has become the expert on early New England church records and the nature of church life and institutions because of the amount of travel and labor he has expended in searching, collecting, and reviewing these records.
Lionel Raff, Regents Professor, Chemistry
Dr. Raff's pioneering research began in 1958 with the use of electron exchange microscopy. He pioneered research on gas-surface interactions using a fully three-dimensional approach with realistic interaction potentials. And later, Dr. Raff and others discovered one of the most important effects governing gas-phase reaction dynamics. He continues his pioneering research today on machining processes at the molecular and atomic level. Dr. Raff and others have published 20 papers in the area that span all types of machining processes. As a result, OSU now has one of the leading research groups in the area. Dr. Raff's research has resulted in 182 peer-reviewed papers and approximately $9 million in external research funding.
Dan S. Rickman, Professor of Economics and OG&E Chair in Regional Economic Analysis, Economics and Legal Studies in Business
Dr. Rickman's research focuses exclusively on various aspects of regional economies. His research varies from broad areas, such as U.S. states or Canadian Provinces to small areas such as counties or metropolitan areas. He has contributed to several different areas within the regional/urban economics literature, including regional business cycle fluctuations and growth, regional income inequality and poverty, regional forecasting and modeling, and regional policy analysis. He has been listed as one of the international intellectual leaders in the field of regional science. Dr. Rickman also has extensive experience in forecasting and analyzing the Oklahoma economy.
Hongyu Wang, Assistant Professor, Teaching and Curriculum Leadership
Since arriving in the United States , Dr. Wang has devoted her career to cross-cultural scholarship and international exchange in education, through her writings in English and Chinese, translations of English books into Chinese, and by serving on international committees. Serving on an editorial board for a book series, Dr. Wang helped to introduce important North American curriculum books into China . The series of books won a National Book Award in 2003. Dr. Wang has published books and articles in the field of curriculum studies, using poststructural theories, East/West dialogue, and gender analysis to address educational issues.
Don A. Lucca, Regents Professor and Tom J. Cunningham Chair, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Dr. Lucca's early experiments established the importance of nanometer scale tool geometries on the resulting force system in ultraprecision machining. He also developed a technique for the characterization of nanometer scale geometries of single crystal diamond tools used in ultraprecision machining. The characterization method developed by Dr. Lucca is now used in laboratories worldwide. As a result of his contributions in the area of near surface characterization of surfaces, Dr. Lucca received the Humboldt Prize in 1997, a Mercator Professorship from the German Science Foundation in 2003, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Bremen in Germany in 2005.
Laura Hubbs-Tait, Professor, Human Development and Family Sciences
Dr. Hubbs-Tait measures her scientific life in terms of human lives affected. Most of her research has addressed problems with applications that can help children, parents, or policy. Much of it has been conducted with families living at the margins of society due to low income, teen pregnancy, or combinations of these and other risk factors. She hopes that some of her findings lead to improvements in the lives of these individuals. In recent years, her research has focused more on this goal, emphasizing the impact of Head Start on young children, the positive (as well as negative) aspects of parenting in low-income families, and, most recently, the “triple whammy” of neurotoxicants, micronutrient deficiencies, and poor social environments of children living in low income families.
Lin Liu, Professor and Director of the Lung Biology and Toxicology Laboratory, Physiological Sciences
Since joining OSU in 2000, Dr. Liu has made significant contributions in his research and as director of the LBTL. The quality and impact of his efforts can be seen in the papers he participated in as first or senior author (28 peer-reviewed and 8 under review); the extramural funding he has obtained for the university (11 grants valued at $6 million); and the number of high quality research personnel recruited or trained in the LBTL (from 2 in 2000 to 21 in 2006). He has served on grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health, and has served on editorial boards of peer-reviewed journals. In the past five years, he has been invited to give 16 presentations on his research at national and international meetings, and at universities.
Craig W. Stevens, Professor of Pharmacology, Center for Health Sciences
Dr. Stevens' research is centered on understanding the interaction of morphine and other opioid analgesics at their target opioid receptor proteins in the brain. Using a novel comparative approach, Dr. Stevens and his lab group cloned and sequenced opioid receptors in non-mammalian vertebrates, including amphibians, reptiles, and birds. Bioinformatic analysis of conserved opioid receptor sequences among different animals led to original hypotheses on the molecular evolution of vertebrate opioid receptors. These results, in turn, lead to a better understanding of opioid drugs which help to design more effective analgesics for the treatment of pain in the clinic. Dr. Stevens came to OSU in 1990 and has had continuous research funding from NIH, state, and private foundations. He is an author and co-author of more than 65 scientific publications and a popular pharmacology textbook for health professionals. He has presented his findings at 40 invited talks, keynotes, symposia at university and scientific conferences worldwide.
Oklahoma State University—an active $100M+ research university located in Stillwater , Oklahoma —is home to nearly 500 researchers working in the fields of biotechnology, energy, nanotechnology, sensors and more to develop innovative solutions for application and commercialization in the global marketplace. For more information about OSU's research programs and “one stop shopping” visit the VPRTT site at www.vpr.okstate.edu/researchcentral .
