Three Receive NSF Awards
Three junior faculty members—Assistant Professor of Physics James Dickerson, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering Hak-Joon Sung, and Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Robert J. Webster III—have been awarded the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development grants.
Dickerson has pioneered methods for making freestanding, transportable films exclusively from nanoparticles. Sung’s research explores a new approach to regenerate injured small blood vessels and creation of a new tool box for minimally invasive surgery. Webster will apply his award to design more accurate and less invasive tentacle-like surgical tools called “continuum robots.”
Law School Honors Alumni
Carlton B. Tarkington, BA’59, JD’63, has been named Vanderbilt Law School’s 2011 Distinguished Alumnus, and Curtis R. Welling, JD’75, is recipient of the law school’s 2011 Distinguished Service Award.
Tarkington retired from a successful career as an executive with West Publishing and then founded Edinburgh Investments, a broker in the investments, real estate and banking sector, in 1996. He has since founded two banks. In 1998, Tarkington endowed the law school’s Tarkington Chair in Teaching Excellence.
Welling is president and chief executive officer of AmeriCares Foundation, a leading international humanitarian aid organization for delivering donated medicines and supplies. He has directed AmeriCares relief efforts for several large-scale disasters. Before joining AmeriCares, Welling had a 25-year career as an executive in the investment banking and securities industry.
French Professor Makes Root 100 List
T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting has been named one of the top 100 young leaders of the African American community by The Root, an online magazine founded by Henry Louis Gates Jr. The director of the African American and Diaspora Studies program at Vanderbilt, Sharpley-Whiting is also Distinguished Professor of French and director of the William T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies.