Awards and Recognition

Fengqi You, the Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor of Energy Systems Engineering, has received an Amazon Research Award for Sustainability for his proposal “Large Language Model Co-Pilot for Transparent and Trusted LCA.” You is one of only 10 researchers across the country to receive at ARA and will have access to Amazon public datasets, along with AWS AI/ML services and tools.

Raaz Dwivedi, assistant professor, won the 2024 Blackwell-Rosenbluth Award, which is given to outstanding junior researchers in Bayesian statistics.

Fengqi You, the Roxanne E. and Michael J. Zak Professor of Energy Systems Engineering, had his paper his paper “Interpretable Surrogate Learning for Electronic Material Generation” featured on the cover of ACS Nano.You also had his paper “GenAI for Scientific Discovery in Electrochemical Energy Storage: State-of-the-Art and Perspectives from Nano- and Micro-Scale” featured on the frontispiece of Small, renowned for its focus on cutting-edge research in nanoscience. Additionally, You’s paper, “Perspectives for sustainability analysis of scalable perovskite photovoltaics”, was featured on the cover of Energy & Environmental Science.

Marcos López de Prado, visiting professor (ORIE, CFEM), received the Officer’s Cross of the Royal Order of Civil Merit, which represents a knighthood and one of Spain’s highest honors, for his distinguished services to science.

Richard Rand, professor emeritus (MAE), has been awarded the 2025 ASME J.P. Den Hartog Award, which is the ASME society level recognition for lifetime contributions to the teaching and practice of vibration engineering. Rand was honored for his “lifetime contributions to vibration engineering through pioneering research at the intersection of mathematics and engineering, with emphasis on the complexity arising in the response of nonlinear structural systems.”

Three members of the Cornell Engineering faculty have been named Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellows, Cornell’s highest honors for graduate and undergraduate teaching. The Stephen H. Weiss Teaching Awards honor teaching faculty in three categories who have a sustained record of commitment and excellence in the teaching and mentoring of undergraduate students.

• Mark Campbell, the John A. Mellowes ’60 Professor (Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Systems Engineering)
• David Shmoys, the Laibe/Acheson Professor of Business Management & Leadership Studies (School of Operations Research and Information Engineering)
• Aaron Wagner, professor (School of Electrical and Computer Engineering)

At its recent meetings, the Cornell University Board of Trustees elected the following professors to appointment with indefinite tenure, effective November 1, 2024:

• Krystyn J. Van Vliet, Professor, (BME, MSE), was elected Professor with indefinite tenure. 
• Qi Li, Assistant Professor (CEE), was elected Associate Professor with indefinite tenure.
• Andreas A. Malikopoulos, Professor (CEE, Systems), was elected Professor with indefinite tenure.

EchoICs, an I-Corps regional course alum and 2022 National I-Corps Team participant, received a $275,000 STTR Phase I Award from the National Science Foundation. Founded by Alyssa Apsel, IBM Professor (ECE), and postdoctoral student Thomas Tapen ’15, Ph.D. ‘21, EchoICs developed a new flexible spectrum radio for more efficient military communications and commercial cellular usage.  

A podcast featuring Gregory Falco, assistant professor (MAE, Systems), won the Defense Media Award for Best Cyber Security Submission of the Year. The Threat Landscape, A Cyber Vulnerability, And Ransoming a Satellite episode aired February 10 on The Downlink Space Tech podcast.

The following faculty have received approval for promotion to the rank of professor, effective November 1, 2024:

• Khurram Afridi, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Nelly Andarawis-Puri, Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Ricardo Daziano, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Meredith Silberstein, Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Zhiru Zhang, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering