Awards and Honors

Erin Mulrooney, associate dean for administration, was presented with the George Peter Award for Dedicated Service during a ceremony January 29 in G10 Biotech.

The George Peter Award for Dedicated Service is given annually by the Employee Assembly to staff who consistently demonstrate excellence in the performance of their duties, and who prove their willingness to extend themselves to help others and go above and beyond the normal expectations of their job responsibilities. 

This honor is the longest running and most prestigious Cornell university-wide peer-nominated award and since its inception in 1980, the award has been bestowed on over 190 Cornell employees.

Susan Daniel’s, William C. Hooey Director and Fred H. Rhodes Professor of Chemical Engineering (CBE), article titled “A mechanistic understanding of the modes of Ca2+ ion binding to the SARS-CoV-1 fusion peptide and their role in the dynamics of host membrane penetration” has been selected to be featured as an ACS Editors' Choice in addition to being published in ACS Infectious Diseases. The ACS Editors' Choice initiative highlights one article each day that is chosen from the entire ACS portfolio.

Marjolein van der Meulen, the James M. and Marsha McCormick Director (BME), has received the 2024 H. R. Lissner Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The H.R. Lissner Medal recognizes outstanding achievements in the field of bioengineering.

Rob Shepherd, associate professor (MAE, Systems), directs the Organic Robots Laboratory, which won a U.S. Department of Energy Grid Overhaul with Proactive, High-Speed Undergrounding for Reliability, Resilience, and Security grant.

Lawrence Bonassar, Daljit S. and Elaine Sarkaria Professor in Biomedical Engineering (BME, MAE), has been awarded the Marshall R. Urist MD Award by the Orthopedic Research Society, which will be presented at the 2024 ORS Annual Meeting.

Udit Gupta, assistant professor (Cornell Tech, ECE), received a $2 million grant from the NSF’s Design for Environmental Sustainability in Computing program to study the environmental impact of edge computing devices and their escalating environmental toll. Joining him in the effort is Amit Lal, the Robert M. Scharf 1977 Professor (ECE).

Claire Cardie, professor (CS), and Kilian Weinberger, professor (CS), have been elected Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Fellows for 2024. Weinberger was also elected as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Emma Pierson, assistant professor (Cornell Tech, CS), has been named an AI2050 Early Career Fellowship. The fellowship encourages postdoctoral and pre-tenure researchers to pursue bold and ambitious work on hard problems in AI.

Greeshma Gadikota’s, associate professor (CEE), Carbon To Stone, Inc. is one of seven semifinalists for the development phase of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Direct Air Capture Pre-Commercial Prize. The semifinalists will receive a total of $1.05 million in cash awards and technical assistance for technology solutions that reduce carbon dioxide pollution by removing it directly from the atmosphere. Carbon To Stone harnesses alkaline resources bearing high value metals for integrated direct air capture, mineralization, and co-recovery of metals and silica.

James Hwang, research professor (MSE), has received the 2023 IEEE EDS Lester F. Eastman Award. The Eastman Award recognizes individuals with outstanding achievement in high-performance semiconductor devices. Eastman ’53, M.S. ’55, Ph.D. ’57 served as a faculty member with Cornell’s School of Electrical Engineering (now the School of Electrical and Computer  Engineering) until his retirement in 2011.