PULLMAN, Wash. — Clint Cole, a successful entrepreneur who brings his
inventive skills to the classroom, and Zoran Obradovic, whose research
interests range from bioinformatics to computational finance, have received
this year’s outstanding faculty awards from Washington State University’s
College of Engineering and Architecture.
Cole, an instructor in electrical engineering and computer science, was
presented the Teaching Excellence Award at the college’s annual convocation
Tuesday. He graduated from WSU in 1987 and went on to establish the
Heartstream Company, which produced successful defibrillators. The firm was
purchased by Hewlett-Packard for $200 million in 1997, and Cole returned to
WSU, receiving his master’s degree last year. He has instituted two new
design labs that have more than 50 personal computers, $500,000 worth of
donated test and measurement equipment and more than $3 million worth of
donated design software.
Obradovic, an assistant professor in electrical engineering and computer
science, won the Outstanding Faculty Researcher Award. He has been at WSU
since 1991, after he earned a doctorate in computer science from Pennsylvania
State University. His research has been consistently funded by federal
agencies in science, health and energy, and by private industry. His
bioinformatics project, funded by the National Science Foundation, produced
prediction models of order and disorder in proteins based on amino-acid
information.
With the teaching and research citations go cash awards of $1,000.
Recognized as the college’s “outstanding senior” student was Sergey
Napelenok, civil engineering. A native of Gomel, Belarus, Napelenok graduates
with a 3.91 cumulative grade point average, is president the WSU Civil
Engineering Honor Society and been selected for membership in the Golden
Key and Tau Beta Pi academic honor societies.
He was the civil engineering department’s outstanding junior in 1999, the
outstanding sophomore in 1998, and has received many college and
departmental scholarships. Napelenok has been a laboratory assistant for the
department’s Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, and he plans to enter an
environmental engineering doctoral program in the fall.
The outstanding junior award has gone to Shana Crane, civil engineering, from
Auburn. She is a Presidential Scholar and is a member of the student chapters
of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Society of Women Engineers,
and the Society of Professional Engineers. Crane serves as a calculus tutor and
a beginning research assistant in the department’s hydraulics laboratory.
Anthony Vader, a civil engineering student from Yacolt, received the
outstanding sophomore award. He is a member of the National Honor Society,
the Mortar Board Honor Society and the student chapter of the American
Society of Civil Engineers. He helped prepare the student’s concrete canoe for
the 1999 competition and has worked as a technician at the Wood Materials
Engineering Laboratory.
The top teaching assistant award went to Timothy Hanshaw, a graduate
student in electrical engineering and computer science. He is on educational
leave from Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell International, earning a master’s
degree in electrical engineering in 1998, and is working to complete his
doctorate. Hanshaw has been the primary instructor in the second-semester
circuits class and assisted professors in introductory circuit theory and
computer literacy classes.
Recognition of the outstanding sophomore, junior, senior and teaching
assistant includes cash awards of $200. Students selected by departments as
outstanding seniors receive $100 awards.
JoAnn McCabe, fiscal specialist for the department of chemical engineering,
was named Outstanding Staff of the Year. She joined the department in 1996.
Richard Zollars, department chair who nominated her for the award, said the
most noteworthy aspect of JoAnn’s job performance is “her ability to put a
personal touch into everything she does. She is always willing to help anyone
who comes into the office. This is always done willingly and with a smile.”
McCabe received a citation for the recognition and a $1,000 cash award.
Two Staff Excellence awards were also presented to Ruby Young, graduate
program coordinator for the school of electrical engineering and computer
science, and to Henry Ruff, a member of the engineering shops staff. Each
received $500 cash awards and citations.
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