Awards and Recognitions
May 12, 2020
Elena Irwin, agricultural, environmental and development economics
faculty director
Elena Irwin, agricultural, environmental and development economics professor and Sustainability Institute faculty director, presented during the Sustainability and Ohio Lands: Creating Value for People and the Environment event. Irwin presented on the topic of Ohio's sustainability, challenging viewers to think about why and how Ohio is sustainable. View the presentation.
May 11, 2020
David Nagib, chemistry and biochemistry
SI affiliated faculty
Nagib received the award in support of his research and outstanding scholarship. The award includes support for our ongoing research on developing synthetic methods to construct new medicines, including radical-mediated C-H and C-O functionalization.
April 29, 2020
Renee Zhao , mechanical and aerospace engineering
SI affiliated faculty
Renee Zhao, an assistant professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Sustainability Institute, received two awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in spring 2020. Earlier this year, Zhao received a five-year Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for her research in the mechanics of soft intelligent materials. More recently, NSF announced funding over the next three years for her project “Micromechanics of Interactions Between Hard Magnetic Particles and Soft Matrix on Magneto-Mechanical Actuation.”
April 27, 2020
Clark Larsen, anthropology
SI affiliated faculty
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced the election of its new members for 2020, which includes a Sustainability Institute affiliated faculty, Clark Larsen, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Anthropology. Larsen is a biological anthropologist whose research focuses on the history of the human condition viewed from the perspective of health, quality of life, adaptation and lifestyle over the last 10,000 years of human evolution. His research and subsequent article based on his study of the ancient city, Çatalhöyük, recently received the 2019 Cozzarelli Prize from the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Larsen will be inducted, along with the rest of this year's class, at a ceremony in October in Cambridge, Massachusetts.   
April 29, 2020
Ian Howat, earth sciences
SI affiliated faculty
Recipients are nominated by their departments and chosen by a committee of senior faculty, including past award recipients. Distinguished Scholars receive an honorarium and a research grant to be used over the next three years. The award is supported by the Office of Research. 
April 24, 2020
Claudia Turro, chemistry and biochemistry
SI affiliated faculty
Claudia Turro, Dow Professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has received the Outstanding Alumni Award from her alma mater, Michigan State University. The award recognizes, among other accomplishments, Turro's "groundbreaking advances in the areas of inorganic chemistry, photochemistry and ultrafast spectroscopy, which has led to important discoveries with impact in medicinal chemistry and solar energy."
April 16, 2020
Chris Otter, history
SI affiliated faculty
Chris Otter is an associate professor of history at Ohio State. He studies the history of technologies of many sizes and at many scales. Otter is a specialist in modern British history, with particular focus on the history of science, technology and public health, environmental history and the history of food.For the period of the 2020-2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, he will be working on his long-term research project on the history and concept of the technosphere, the sum total of all human technologies comprehended at multiple scales, from the tools and devices in our hands to our slowly warming atmosphere. “I am honestly very humbled to receive this award!” said Otter via email. “I will use it to continue research for a long-term book project on the history of the Earth's technosphere. The technosphere is the sum total of all human technological activity, from fire and the earliest stone tools to today's digital networks and warming atmosphere. Hopefully I will get a reasonable chunk of the book written as well.”
April 13, 2020
Tarunjit Butalia, civil, environmental, and geodetic engineering
SI affiliated faculty
Tarunjit Butalia received a College of Engineering 2020 Award for Distinguished Outreach Achievements (for two decades of Coal Combustion Program) and the 2020 David C. McCarthy Engineering Teaching Award (for distingushed teaching across COE classes). 
March 16, 2020
Clark Larsen, anthropology
SI affiliated faculty
Distinguished University Professor and Sustainability Institute Affiliated Faculty, Clark Larsen, anthropology was awarded the 2019 Cozzarelli Prize from the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This is an honor given to just six authors out of more than 3,300 submitted papers last year. The winners represent exceptional scientific achievement, originality and innovation in their fields.
March 30, 2020
Katrina Cornish, horticulture and crop science
SI faculty advisory board
The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has announced the induction of Katrina Cornish, horticulture and crop science and SI faculty advisory board, to its College of Fellows.Election to the AIMBE College of Fellows is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to a medical and biological engineer. The College of Fellows is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers.Dr. Cornish was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the College of Fellows for “high-performance, natural allergy-safe latex for medical and consumer products, supporting developing countries.”