The recipients will be honored at an awards banquet May 16, the evening before the School of Engineerings spring commencement ceremonies. They are:
Mir A. Imran, founder and CEO of In-Cube Inc. Imran is being honored as alumnus of the year. He earned a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from Rutgers in 1977 and completed masters level course work in both biomedical and electrical engineering at Rutgers in 1979.
Curtis R. Carlson, president and CEO of SRI International. Carlson is being honored for lifetime achievement. He earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Rutgers in 1973.
Arthur G. Erdman, P.E., the Richard C. Jordan Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. Erdman is being honored for achievement in academia. He earned a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from Rutgers in 1967.
Jeffrey R. Biamonte, manager, System z9 RAS Design and eServer Reliability at IBM in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Biamonte is being honored as the outstanding young alumnus. He earned a bachelors degree in electrical and computer engineering from Rutgers in 1999.
At the same event, the schools alumni association the Rutgers Engineering Society will present its distinguished engineer award to Frederick F. Lange, professor of materials science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Lange received a bachelors degree in ceramics from Rutgers in 1961. The society has been presenting its distinguished engineer award since 1960.
Rutgers has a long and proud history of engineering education, with graduates who have risen to leadership positions in government, industry and academia worldwide, said Michael Klein, dean of the School of Engineering. These awards, which we issue annually, give us the chance to recognize our alumni and display the breadth of talent and expertise we nurture here.
Instruction in engineering began at Rutgers in 1864, when the state of New Jersey designated the Rutgers Scientific School as the State College for the Benefit of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. The present School of Engineering became a separate entity in 1914. It has departments that cover aerospace, biochemical, biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, industrial, materials, mechanical and systems engineering.
Alumnus of the Year award:
Mir A. Imran is the founder and CEO of In-Cube Inc., a medical electronics research laboratory and business incubator for medical and technology companies. He is also an active angel investor and limited partner in several venture funds. A holder of more than 200 patents, Imran was a developer of the first FDA-approved automatic implantable defibrillator. He also invented the EEG monitoring sensor array that astronaut John Glenn wore on his 1998 space shuttle mission. His current research interests include tissue engineering, gastroenterology, nephrology, neurology, orthopedics, congestive heart failure and artificial organs as well as wireless technology and security.
Imran is the speaker at the School of Engineerings 2007 commencement convocation. He lives in Menlo Park, Calif.
Alumni Lifetime Achievement award:
Curtis R. Carlson is president and CEO of SRI International, an independent, nonprofit research institute conducting client-sponsored research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses, foundations and other organizations. Previously, he spent more than 20 years with the Sarnoff Corporation, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of SRI in 1987. As head of ventures and licensing at Sarnoff, Carlson helped found more than 12 new companies. He was a leader in the high-definition television (HDTV) program that became the U.S. standard and won Sarnoff an Emmy Award in 1997 for outstanding technical achievement. Another of Carlsons teams brought Sarnoff an Emmy Award in 2000 for a system that measures broadcast image quality.
Carlson lives in Portola Valley, Calif.
Alumni Achievement in Academia award:
Arthur G. Erdman, P.E. is the Richard C. Jordan Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, specializing in mechanical design, bioengineering and product design. He holds more than 30 patents and has published three books and more than 275 technical papers. He also shares nine best paper awards at international conferences. Erdman has consulted at more than 50 companies and has received several awards, including the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Machine Design Award and Outstanding Design Educator Award. He has developed technology that will help patients who suffer from macular degeneration.
Erdman lives in Saint Paul, Minn.
Outstanding Young Alumnus award:
Jeffrey R. Biamonte is manager of System z9 RAS Design and eServer Reliability at IBM in Poughkeepsie, New York. Biamonte holds six patents and has four pending, and has published several articles in the IBM Technical Journal. He has received many awards recognizing his inventions and innovations.
Biamonte lives in Hyde Park, NY.
Rutgers Engineering Society Distinguished Engineer Award:
Frederick F. Lange, professor of materials science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, pioneered the understanding of silicon nitride and zirconia ceramics. His work has benefited automotive wear parts, high-end bearings and biomedical devices. Recently, Lange pioneered two chemical solution routes to produce epitaxial thin films for optoelectronic devices. He currently studies the synthesis of zinc oxide, a wide band gap semiconductor, as single crystal thin films.
Lange has logged 20 years as an industrial researcher with Westinghouse and Rockwell, and 20 years as a professor of materials science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has been a member of the National Academy of Engineering since 1992, chair of materials science at UCSB from 1998 to 2005 and one of 225 highly cited researchers in materials, which amounts to less than one-half percent of all researchers in that field. In 1980, Rockwell named him their Engineer of the Year for solving the space shuttle tile problem that delayed the first launch.
Lange lives in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Contact:
Carl Blesch
Rutgers University
732-932-7084, ext. 616
E-mail: cblesch@ur.rutgers.edu
070514-1
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