Five earn Faculty Scholar Medals for outstanding research work

Five earn Faculty Scholar Medals for outstanding research work

(top row, from left) Maureen Carr, Hong Ma and James F. Kasting; (bottom row, from left) Akhlesh Lakhtakia and Frank R. Baumgartner

University Park, Pa. -- Five Penn State professors will receive 2004-2005 Faculty Scholar Medals for Outstanding Achievement. Maureen Carr, professor of music, will receive the Arts and Humanities Medal; Hong Ma, professor of biology, will receive the Life and Health Science Medal; James F. Kasting, distinguished professor of geosciences, will receive the Physical Sciences Medal; Akhlesh Lakhtakia, distinguished professor of engineering science and mechanics will receive the Engineering Medal, and Frank R. Baumgartner, distinguished professor of political science, will receive the Social and Behavioral Sciences Medal.

Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme. A committee of faculty peers reviews nominations and selects candidates.

Carr receives her award for her books, "Multiple Masks: Neoclassicism in Stravinsky's Dramatic works on Greek Subjects" and "Stravinsky's Historie du soldat," which position her as an authority on Stravinsky's musical sketches and one of the leading scholars on the music of Stravinsky. Her research not only expands the knowledge of Stravinsky's compositional process, but also provides new insights into the cultural context for the works that she has studied. Her research has been conducted primarily in Switzerland at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel. In addition, she has worked at archives in Winterthur, Lausanne, London and Paris. She received grants from the Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanities, the College of Arts and Architecture, the American Association of American Women and Pro Helvetia.

She has a B.A. from Marywood College, an M.F.A. from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has served on several national and regional committees related to the field of music theory. She has presented papers at national meetings as well as at international conferences in Belgium and England. In 1995, she received the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture Outstanding Teaching Award, was named a Distinguished Alumna by the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music in 1998, and in 2004 she received a Marywood University Professional Achievement Award.

Ma receives his medal for his research on the molecular basis of plant reproduction, which helps us understand one of the most important and basic of biological processes: the production of eggs and sperm. Using a variety of approaches, including molecular genetics of flower development and genome-based studies of flower evolution, Ma's research is at the forefront of both disciplines and is widely applicable to plants and animals that reproduce sexually, including humans.

Ma received his B.A. from Temple University in 1983 and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988. He was a postdoc at the California Institute of Technology from 1988 to 1990. He joined Penn State in 1998. He received the American Cancer Society Junior Faculty Research Award for1994-1997 and a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2004-2005.

Kasting's medal is for his deep and broad contributions to our understanding of planetary habitability and evolution. His work has covered such problems as the "Faint Young Sun Paradox," carbon dioxide levels in early Earth's atmosphere, the origins of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, the effects of glaciation, global warming and asteroid impacts. He is one of the foremost experts on the atmosphere of Mars and on planetary habitable zones.

He received his A.B. in chemistry and physics from Harvard University in 1975, an M.S. in physics and an M.S. in atmospheric science in 1978 and his Ph.D. in atmospheric science in 1979 from the University of Michigan. From 1979 to 1981, he was in the Advanced Study Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and then from 1981 to 1983, he was a post-doctoral fellow at NASA Ames Research Center. From 1983 to 1988, he was a research scientist at NASA Ames and joined Penn State in 1988 as an associate professor. He became distinguished professor in 2003. Kasting is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life.

Lakhtakia receives his award primarily for the theoretical and experimental development of sculptured thin films and also for a theoretical treatment of the negative-phase-velocity propagation of light in gravitationally-affected vacuum. His theoretical foundations, modeling and simulation of nanometer structures led to the fabrication of nanoengineered sculptured thin films. These films have been developed as optical filters and now are being developed for applications in tissue and bone growth and sensors for toxic and bacterial agents. His recent paper on negative wave refraction in space has major implication for locating distant stars, determining distances in space and deep-space travel.

He received his B.Tech in electronics engineering from Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Utah. He joined Penn State in 1983. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, SPIE – International Society for Optical Engineering and Institute of Physics (United Kingdom). He is a visiting professor of physics at Imperial College, UK.

Baumgartner is a leading scholar in our understanding of public policy formation. He receives his medal for explanations of why policy change in the U.S. government is incremental most of the time but is prone to occasional dramatic disruptions. His groundbreaking studies of interest groups, public advocacy and public agenda setting led to an understanding of what triggers incrementalism and punctuations in policy formation.

He received his B.A. in 1980, his M.A. in 1983 and his Ph.D. in 1986 in political science from the University of Michigan. From 1987 to 1998, he was assistant, associate and professor at Texas A & M University. He joined Penn State in 1998, became head of the Political Science Department in 2000, and was named distinguished professor in 2005. He currently is a visiting professor at Centre d'Etudes de la Vie Politique Francaise/L'Institut d'Etudes Politique, Paris. In 2001, he received the Aaron Wildavsky Award from the American Political Science Association for his book "Agendas and Instability in American Politics."