Five Women Honored With Prestigious Awards

Janet R. Donaldson, an assistant professor of microbiology at Mississippi State University, received the Charles C. Randall Lectureship Award from the South Central Branch of the American Society for Microbiology. Her research is focused on foodborne illnesses.

Dr. Donaldson holds bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from Mississippi State. She conducted postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Julie A. Champion, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Georgia Tech, received a Breakthrough Award from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. The award comes with a $100,000 grant for Dr. Champion’s research on inflammatory bowel disease which she is conducting with Andrew S. Neish, a professor at the Emory University School of Medicine.

Dr. Champion is a graduate of the University of Michigan. She holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Manuela Veloso, the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, was named a 2012 Einstein Chair Professor by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. As an Einstein Chair Professor, Dr. Veloso will make a series of presentations at Chinese universities. Her research focuses on artificial intelligence and robotics.

Dr. Veloso holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. She is the president-elect of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

Anna Gassman-Pines, an assistant professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, is the inaugural recipient of the Victoria S. Levin Award for Early Career Success in Young Children’s Mental Health Research. The award is presented by the Society for Research in Child Development.

Dr. Gassman-Pines is a graduate of Yale University, where she majored in psychology. She holds a Ph.D. in community and developmental psychology from New York University.

Marissa Nichole Rylander, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, received the 2012 Y.C. Fung Young Investigator Award from the bioengineering division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering.

Dr. Rylander holds a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Texas. She joined the faculty at Virginia Tech in 2006.