April 10, 2009
Trustees approve professorship, chair, Purdue Calumet vice chancellor
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Purdue University board of trustees on Friday (April 10) ratified three appointments for a named professorship, an endowed chair and the vice chancellor for information services at the Calumet campus.Trustees also approved a new representative to the Indiana Board of Animal Health as well as new master's degree programs in computer and information technology and industrial technology.
Ahmed Hassanein is now the Paul L. Wattelet Professor of Nuclear Engineering, and a professor who will join Purdue this summer was named as the Richard E. Dauch Chair in Manufacturing and Operations Management.
The newest appointments bring the university's total of named university and distinguished professors to 160.
"We feel fortunate that these professors will play an important role in the classroom and research at Purdue," Provost Randy Woodson said. "Their expertise is critical to our goal of providing a strong educational experience for our students."
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Before coming to Purdue in 2007, Hassanein was a senior scientist and group leader at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. He has more than 25 years of experience in research and development in the fields of nuclear engineering and materials science.
Hassanein's research interest includes the fields of modeling material responses to different radiation sources. He has developed models and comprehensive computer packages to predict material behavior, lifetime issues, plasma evolution and fluid hydrodynamics under various irradiation conditions.
He received his bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering from Alexandria University in Egypt in 1974 and his master's degree in 1976. Hassanein also earned a master's degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1979 and physics in 1981 and his doctorate there in 1982.
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J. George Shanthikumar, a professor in the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, will join Purdue's Krannert School of Management this summer. While at Berkeley, he held appointments in the business school and in industrial engineering.
He served on numerous committees there and was chairman of the Management Science Group from 1989-92. Shanthikumar has published more than 200 articles in referred journals, books and a variety of other publications.
Shanthikumar earned his doctorate from the University of Toronto in 1979 and joined the Syracuse University industrial engineering and operations research department. He moved to the University of Arizona as an associate professor in 1982 before joining the University of California in 1984.
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H. Frank Cervone began April 6 as vice chancellor for information services at Purdue Calumet after serving as director of library, information and media studies at Chicago State University. He also taught as an associate professor.
Cervone is a member of the American Library Association, the Library and Information Technology Association, International Federation of Library Associations, the Association of Information Systems and the Association of Institutional Research.
He earned his bachelor's degree from Governors State University in 1986, master's degree from DePaul University in 1999 and master's degree in education from California State University, East Bay, in 2001. Cervone also earned a master's degree and doctorate from Northcentral University in Prescott, Ariz.
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Trustees approved naming Sandra Amass, associate dean for engagement and professor in Purdue's School of Veterinary Medicine, as its representative on the Indiana Board of Animal Health. Amass is replacing Leon Thacker, who retired.
Amass is director of the National Biosecurity Resource Center, the former associate director of the Purdue Homeland Security Institute and past interim associate director of the e-Enterprise Center in Purdue's Discovery Park.
She earned her bachelor's degree from Gettysburg College and her master's degree and doctorate at Purdue. Amass is a diplomate of the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners in swine health management.
The board also approved master's degree programs in computer and information technology and in industrial technology on the West Lafayette campus. Both will need approval from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. Woodson said research has shown current and future needs for computer and information technology professionals with advanced degrees. He said studies predict a 99 percent growth for master's degree-level bioinformatics specialists over the next five years.
Woodson said the industrial technology master's program will address a concern made by a National Academy of Engineering report on how the United States lacks workers with high enough levels of education to contribute to the research and development efforts of America's future technology industry.
Writer: Clyde Hughes, (765) 494-2073, jchughes@purdue.edu
Sources: Randy Woodson, woodson@purdue.edu
Ahmed Hassanein, 765-496-9731, hassanein@purdue.edu
Tim Newton, Krannert School of Management, 765-496-7271, tnewton@purdue.edu
H. Frank Cervone, 219-989-8185, fcerone@calumet.purdue.edu
Sandra Amass, 765-494-8052, amass@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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