With engine emissions requirements as strict as ever and federally mandated fuel economy standards set to rise, the National Science Foundation has awarded professors at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering $200,000 to further their research on computational models and algorithms to optimize engine performance in both areas.

Research grant and contract expenditures by University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering faculty totaled more than $21.8 million in fiscal year 2009, the largest ever on record.

Up some 50 percent from the previous fiscal year’s total, primarily the federal government—the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy—supported the research.

Vincent M. Donnelly, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been named a recipient of the John and Rebecca Moores Professorship.

The Moores professorship is a five-year renewable award given to full-time, tenured faculty who have made outstanding contributions in the areas of teaching, service and research.

The award, given to only two people a year at UH, carries with it a $10,000 stipend.

A postdoctoral research fellow with the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering took first place in the poster presentation competition at the Southwest Catalysis Society’s Spring Symposium, held this spring at Rice University.

Four faculty members of the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering were honored last week at the university faculty awards presentation. Vemuri Balakotaiah, Karolos Grigoriadis, David Shattuck and Osman Ghazzaly were among 15 scholars honored at the event held April 22 at the UH Hilton Hotel.

Vemuri Balakotaiah
Excellence in Research and Scholarship Award