Highlight:

The 322,000-square-foot Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences (CIEMAS) neared completion and opened during the summer. This four-building teaching and research complex represents a fundamental shift from departmental confines and brings together scientists and teachers from across scientific disciplines.

Major grants:

Ashutosh Chilkoti received $3.2 million from the Centers for Disease Control to develop a label-free optical nanobiosensor that measures biomolecular interactions in real-time for the detection of category A pathogens.

Farshid Guilak received a five-year, $7-million grant from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Disease to probe how cartilage cells within joints change in response to mechanical stresses and immunological factors.

Morton Friedman received $2.3 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to measure and catalog the motion of the coronary arteries on the surface of the heart and relate coronary artery dynamics to wall strain, plaque development and plaque rupture.

Honors and Recognition:

• Robert Plonsey won the 2004 Ragnar Granit Prize
• Andrew Schuler and Adam Wax each won five-year National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards
• Sylvia Ferrari was named an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator
• Morton Friedman was awarded the Biomedical Engineering Society Distinguished Service Award
• Devendra Garg was awarded the 2003 Edwin F. Church Medal for Distinguished Service to Mechanical Engineering Education
• Kristina Johnson was awarded the Society of Women Engineers' prestigious Achievement Award

Faculty and staff appointments:

• Jean Mark Fellous, assistant professor, biomedical engineering
• Warren Grill, associate professor, biomedical engineering
• Kathryn Nightingale, assistant professor, biomedical engineering
• Claudia Gunsch, assistant professor, civil and environmental engineering
• Heileen Hsu, assistant professor, civil and environmental engineering
• Jungsang Kim, John-Kelly C. Warren Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Chris Dwyer, assistant professor, electrical and computer engineering
• Adrienne Stiff-Roberts, assistant professor, electrical and computer engineering
• David Smith, Augustine Scholar and Associate Professor, electrical and computer engineering
• Tomoyuki Yoshie, assistant professor, electrical and computer engineering
• Jonathan Protz, assistant professor, mechanical engineering and materials science

School statistics: