The first half of July brings exciting honors and funding awards for UT Students: Haslam College of Business Professor Appointed Executive Director of Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy; EECS Professor Wins IEEE Award; Civil and Engineering Professor Named Fellow by A&WMA; CEE Doctoral Student Recognized for Air Quality Research; CEE Professor Wins Excellence in Transportation Engineering Award
Marianne Wanamaker Appointed Executive Director of Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy
Marianne Wanamaker, associate professor of economics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has been appointed executive director of the university’s Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy. She begins July 1 and replaces former executive director Matt Murray, who announced his retirement in March.
Wanamaker recently served for a year on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, first as senior labor economist and then as chief domestic economist. She was responsible for the administration’s economic analysis of labor, education, workforce, immigration, health care, environmental, and tax policy.
IEEE Awards EECS Professor for Paper on Electric Vehicle Research
Associate Professor Kevin Bai has been awarded a 2021 Second Place Prize Paper Award by IEEE journal Transactions on Transportation Electrification (TTE) for a paper he co-authored, “Transient Analysis When Applying GaN+Si Hybrid Switching Modules to a Zero-voltage-switching EV On-board Charger.”
Bai authored the paper with electrical engineering graduate research assistant Liyan Zhu, as well as with Alan Brown and Matt McAmmond from the Hella Engineering Center in Michigan, the project’s sponsor. The project is also sponsored by PowerAmerica, which is led through the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Fu Named Fellow by Air and Waste Management Association
John D. Tickle Professor Joshua Fu was recently honored with the 2021 Fellow Member Award from the Air and Waste Management Association (A&WMA). Those named as Fellows must have been in a field related to the mission and objectives of the A&WMA for a minimum of 15 years and been a member for 10 consecutive years. Election as a Fellow is in recognition of two categories: professional accomplishments and service to A&WMA.
Kuo Recognized for Air Quality Research
CEE doctoral student Cheng-pin Kuo, who is studying under John D. Tickle Professor Joshua Fu, received the Environmental Management or Policy Research and Study Related to Air Quality scholarship from the Air and Waste Management Association (A&WMA) for his exceptional work in air quality research and study.
Kuo’s professional goal is to use the power of modeling and machine learning to improve air quality and benefit public health.
Han Wins Excellence in Transportation Engineering Award
Professor Lee Han was recently honored with the Southern District of the Institute of Traffic Engineers Excellence in Transportation Engineering Education Award. The award reflects his involvement in solving major transportation issues with big data, forecasting, and exploring the impact COVID had on Tennessee’s urban traffic patterns, traffic queue prediction and warning systems, protect the queue policies impact on transportation network reliability, and studying the effectiveness of WAZE data reporting, as well as many other variable studies.