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Carnegie Science Awards announced
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Amid arcing electricity and clouds from dry ice, Carnegie Science Center announced the winners of the 2009 Carnegie Science Awards.
The awards sponsored by the Eaton Corp. included the Chairman's Award to Westinghouse Electric Co. for its advances in nuclear power, and the Advanced Manufacturing Award to Karen Craig and Dirk Kammermeier of Kennametal Inc. in Latrobe for development of a hybrid tool that does both milling and grinding.
Robert Hunt, Brian Long and Rick Starcher of Bayer MaterialScience LLC won the Advanced Materials award for carbon nanotube-based coatings used for flexible large-area sensing systems in such products as wheelchairs and hospital mattresses.
Lenore Blum of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University received the Catalyst Award as a founding director of Project Olympus, which targets high-tech talent to help with economic growth in the region. She's also worked at CMU to achieve one of the highest percentages of women in a computer-science program worldwide.
Idea Foundry won the Corporate Innovation Award for its work in transforming entrepreneurs' technology ideas into viable commercial businesses. In six years, the foundry has helped to launch 50 businesses in the region.
Educator award winners include Cyndy Carroll of the Canon-McMillan School District, Maribeth Varganin of Quaker Valley School District, and William Diehl and Anita Schuchardt of Shady Side Academy, with the Derry Area School District receiving honors as the region's top district for emphasizing math and science.
Dr. John F. Mahoney, associate dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, was honored for developing a medical school curriculum on bioterrorism that has been adopted by other leading medical schools.
David Palmer of ClearCount Medical Solutions received the Start-Up Entrepreneur Award for commercializing the SmartSponge System designed to improve operating room safety and efficiency.
D. Raja, cofounder of Computer Enterprises Inc., won the Entrepreneur Award for information technology consulting, project services and outsourcing it does for 850 clients, including more than 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies.
The Environmental Award went to Rebecca Flora of Green Building Alliance. Peter Feiler of CMU's Software Engineering Institute won the Information Technology Award, with Joe Miksch of the Pitt Med Magazine receiving the Journalism Award.
Life Sciences Award winners were Dr. Yuan Chang and Dr. Patrick Moore of Pitt's Cancer Institute. Emerging Female Science Award went to Priya Narasimhan of CMU; Donna J. Haworth, a Pitt doctoral student of bioengineering, received the Post-Secondary Student Award.
Ann Metzger, science center acting co-director, said the award winners -- "champions of science and technology in our region" -- were selected from hundreds of nominations received by Nov. 1. Committees of entrepreneurs, past winners and science and technology leaders from throughout the region selected the winners.
"These would be unsung heroes if we did not shine a light on them," Ms. Metzger said.
The award winners will be honored May 8 during a formal celebration at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland.
First Published January 29, 2009 2:07 pm
