America
Obama honours two South Asian science, math mentors
By
Arun KumarWashington, March 28
An Indian-American and a
Sri Lankan-origin scientist and teacher are among fourteen individuals
and one organization named winners of the Presidential Award for
Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM).
Andhra
University graduate Murty S. Kambhampati, a professor of biology at
Southern University at New Orleans, and Sri Lankan origin Tilak
Ratnanather, an associate professor in the biomedical engineering
department of the Johns Hopkins University, Maryland will receive their
awards at a White House ceremony later this year.
"These
educators are helping to cultivate America's future scientists,
engineers and mathematicians," President Barack Obama said announcing
the names of the award winners Friday.
"They open new worlds to
their students, and give them the encouragement they need to learn,
discover and innovate. That's transforming those students' futures, and
our nation's future, too."
The PAESMEM is awarded by the White
House to individuals and organizations to recognize the crucial role
that mentoring plays in the academic and personal development of
students studying science and engineering-particularly those who belong
to groups that are underrepresented in these fields.
In addition
to being honoured at the White House, recipients receive awards of
$10,000 from the National Science Foundation. The mentors and
organizations announced Fridat represent the winners for 2012 and 2013.
Kambhampati
holds a PhD from Jackson State University in Environmental Science and a
PhD from Andhra University, India in Ecology.
Over the years, he
established excellent collaborations with several instittions to place
students for summer internships and ecological field trips. according to
his profile.
He is an active research mentor for undergraduates
and is Southern University at New Orleans's Beta Kappa Chi/National
Institute of Science chapters' sponsor.
He has won several awards
for his work as a mentor, including the National Role Model Faculty
Award from Minority Access, Inc., in 2008.
His research interests
are Phytoremediation, Environmental Toxicology, ecological studies on
coastal ponds, and Environmental Biotechnology.
Originally from
Sri Lanka, Ratnanather is at the forefront of the relatively new field
of computational anatomy, an emerging discipline at the interface of
geometry, statistics, and image analysis.
His current research
interests include shape analysis of brain structures in schizophrenia,
Alzheimer's, depression, and deafness in addition to mathematical and
computational problems in cochlear and cardiac physiology, according to
his university profile.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])