CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Five faculty members of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science: C.K. (Tina) Gunsalus, Paul B. Kelter, Harris A. Lewin, Benjamin W. Wah and John H. Weaver.
Election as a fellow is an honor bestowed upon members by their peers. This year 308 members were elevated to this rank because of their efforts to advance science or its applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished. The fellows will be announced in the Oct. 29 issue of the journal Science, which is published by AAAS.
Gunsalus, special counsel in the Office of University Counsel and adjunct professor in the College of Law, was selected “for sustained contributions to the national debate over improving the practical handling of ethical, legal, professional and administrative issues as they affect scientific research and the academic research environment.” She was named assistant vice chancellor for research in 1984 and has served the campus in numerous positions. Her work has included technology transfer, managing conflicts of interest and human-subject protection. She also served as campus research standards officer, dealing with allegations of professional misconduct by faculty and students. She has served on the Committee on Research Integrity of the Association of American Medical Colleges and on the U.S. Commission on Research Integrity.
Kelter, director of the division of general chemistry, was selected “for energetic and effective leadership in chemical education, both at the college and high-school levels, for excellence in teaching, and for daring to believe that all students can learn.”
Before coming to Illinois in 2003, Kelter served as an educational specialist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and on the faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He also has led numerous workshops with schoolteachers in Nebraska, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
Lewin, the director of the Institute for Genomic Biology and holder of the Gutgsell Endowed Chair in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, was chosen “for pioneering studies in the fields of cattle immunogenetics and genomics.” He joined the department of animal sciences at Illinois in 1984. Lewin also is a leader of a project that is sequencing the cattle genome and striving to determine the origin, evolution and function of cattle genes.
Wah, the Franklin W. Woeltge Endowed Professor in electrical and computer engineering, was elected as a fellow “for outstanding and innovative contributions to the theory and applications of nonlinear optimization.” Before joining Illinois in 1985, Wah was on the Purdue University faculty. In 1988-89, he served as a program director at the National Science Foundation. In addition to his focus on nonlinear optimization,
Wah also studies multimedia signal processing, artificial neural networks, computer networks, evolutionary computation, and parallel and distributed processing.
Weaver, the Donald B. Willett Professor of the College of Engineering, was chosen “for seminal studies on the physics and chemistry of surfaces, interfaces and nanostructures.” His name appears on two patents, and he has written more than 450 peer-reviewed research papers. Weaver joined the Illinois faculty in 2000 and is a professor in two departments: materials science and engineering, and of physics. He previously served on the staff at the Synchrotron Radiation Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and on the faculty at the University of Minnesota.
The election of AAAS Fellows began in 1874. This year’s fellows will be honored during the AAAS annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in February. AAAS, a non-profit organization founded in 1848, is the world’s largest general scientific society.
