Jonsson School Honors its Own in Year-End Award Ceremony

“I am continually impressed by the stories I hear of individuals in the Jonsson School who go above and beyond,” said Dr. Mark W. Spong, dean of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science.

The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science recently recognized faculty and staff members whose work has enhanced the educational experience for students and the work environment for fellow employees.

“I am continually impressed by the stories I hear of individuals in the Jonsson School who go above and beyond,” said Dr. Mark W. Spong, dean of the Jonsson School. “Our annual appreciation and excellence awards banquet was a fun event to say thanks and to celebrate the accomplishments of our own.”

The awards recognize contributions by staff, students, and faculty teaching and research.

The research awards honored both junior and senior faculty members.

“In the junior research category, we ended up recognizing two faculty members,” said Spong, holder of the Lars Magnus Ericsson Chair in Electrical Engineering and the Excellence in Education Chair. “Having a difficult time deciding between the best of the best is a good problem to have.”

The Junior Faculty Research Awards went to Dr. Leonidas Bleris, assistant professor of bioengineering, and Dr. Walter Voit, assistant professor of materials science and engineering and mechanical engineering.

Bleris is a pioneer in the field of synthetic biology. His work has contributed to technologies for general-purpose computing and genome editing. His research group is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Bleris regularly serves on scientific review panels and is an independent expert with the European Commission under the Science, Economy and Society Directorate. He is the leading or corresponding author of several papers published in high-impact journals.

Voit is a pioneer in the area of shape memory polymers (materials that can respond to the body’s environment and become less rigid when implanted in the body), radiation processing of materials and neural interfaces. He directs a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center. The group he currently advises includes six postdoctoral researchers, 11 doctoral students and four Texas Biomedical Device Center Fellows. His research has appeared in Science and other high-impact journals.

The Senior Faculty Research Award went to Dr. Robert (Bob) Wallace, professor of materials science and engineering and holder of the Erik Jonsson Distinguished Chair. Wallace helped found the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and has been a recognized technical leader in the semiconductor industry for more than a decade. His team discovered that hafnium silicates and oxides could be used in transistors to enable smaller nanoscale devices — a discovery that revolutionized the computer industry. He has authored more than 260 publications and holds 45 patents. He also was instrumental in creating UT Dallas’ partnership with two major research centers, the Center for Low Energy Systems Technology (LEAST), and Southwest Academy for Nanoelectronics.

The award committee also noted that Wallace has consistently supported and graduated PhD students. He is a fellow of AVS: Science and Technology of Materials, Interfaces and Processing; and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is also a past recipient of an IBM Faculty Award.

In addition to the research awards, the school presented awards for teaching and staff support.