December 4, 2009
Purdue trustees approve faculty appointments, name Calumet program
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Purdue University board of trustees on Friday (Dec. 4) ratified the appointment of three named professors and one distinguished professor and approved the naming of a program at the Purdue Calumet campus.Trustees approved the appointment of Anil Bajaj as the Alpha P. Jamison Professor of Engineering, David S. Ebert as the Silicon Valley Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, James Farr as the Germaine Seelye Oesterle Chair in History, and Suresh V. Garimella as the R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
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The author of more than 90 refereed journal articles and 70 conference papers, Bajaj has won several honors, including the Provost's Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award at Purdue in 2006 and the Mentor Award and Team Award this year from among the Purdue College of Engineering's Faculty Excellence Awards. He also is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Bajaj earned his bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, India; his master's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India; and his doctoral degree from the University of Minnesota. He joined Purdue in 1981 and has been the associate head for research and graduate education at the School of Mechanical Engineering since 2001.
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Ebert is director of the Visual Analytics for Command Control and Interoperability Center (VACCINE), the visualization science team for the Department of Homeland Security's Command Control and Interoperability Center of Excellence. He also is a fellow of IEEE, the world's largest technical professional association; former editor in chief of IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics; and serves on the IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors and the IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee's Executive Committee.
Ebert performs research in novel visualization techniques; visual analytics; volume rendering; information visualization; perceptually based visualization; illustrative visualization; mobile graphics and visualization; and procedural abstraction of complex, massive data.
Ebert earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from Ohio State University. He's been teaching at Purdue since 2000.
Before joining Purdue, Ebert taught at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He also was a visiting associate professor at Stanford University in 2000 and a visiting scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in 1995 and 1997. In addition, he has been a visualization consultant for Mitsubishi Information Technology Center, the National Library of Medicine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Ebert has authored three books, more than 130 refereed publications, contributed 13 book chapters and edited 14 volumes.
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Farr teaches European history courses in the early modern period, as well as courses with a methodological and theoretical emphasis on cultural history, and history and film.
An author of seven books and numerous book chapters and articles, Farr received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1998-99, the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies Fellowship at Princeton University in 1994-95 and the American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship in 1994-95.
Farr earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Mississippi, his master's degree from Memphis State University and his doctorate from Northwestern University. He's been teaching at Purdue since 1988.
Before coming to Purdue, Farr taught at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., and Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
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Garimella's research interests include thermal microsystems, energy efficiency in computing and electronics, micro- and nano-scale transport phenomena, electromechanical microfluidic actuation, high-performance compact cooling technologies, solar thermal energy storage, waste heat recovery, and materials processing.
A co-author of more than 300 refereed journal and conference publications, Garimella also has edited and contributed to a number of books. He has won several awards, including the Allan Kraus Thermal Management Medal and the Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Distance Teaching Award from the Division of Engineering Professional Education of Purdue University.
Garimella earned his bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, his master's degree from Ohio State University and his doctorate from the University of California Berkeley. He started teaching at Purdue University in 1999.
Trustees also approved naming the Hospitality and Tourism Management program at Calumet the Purdue University Calumet White Lodging Center for Hospitality and Tourism Management. The naming was done in recognition of a $5 million combined gift from the Dean and Barbara White Family Foundation and the Bruce and Beth White Family Foundation.
Writer: Soumitro Sen, 765-496-9711, ssen@purdue.edu
Sources: Anil Bajaj, 765-494-6896, anil.k.bajaj.1@purdue.edu
David S. Ebert, 765-494-9064, ebert@purdue.edu
James Farr, 765-496-2698, jrfarr@purdue.edu
Suresh Garimella, 765-494-5621, garimell@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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