WPI announces tenure awards, promotions

courtesy of WPI News-Service

The Board of Trustees of Worcester Polytechnic Institute recently promoted or granted tenure to 12 faculty members.

Granted tenure & promoted were:

Jonathan R. Barnett of Auburn, Mass., to associate professor of fire protection engineering. Barnett earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering at WPI, where he also completed his doctorate in mechanical engineering. A member of the faculty since 1982 (tenure-track since 1989), Barnett's research and teaching interests are in mathematical modeling and computer simulation of fires in buildings, ships, and transit systems with emphasis on heat transfer in structures and the use of computers in fire investigation and fire reconstruction. He is the editor of the Journal of Fire Protection Engineering, the only journal of its kind in the world.

Steven C. Bullock of Worcester, Mass., to associate professor of history in the Department of Humanities and Arts. Bullock earned a B.S. at Houghton College, an M.A. at the State University of New York at Binghamton, and an A.M and Ph.D. at Brown University. His areas of interest and expertise are in Colonial and Revolutionary America, 19th century America, American social and cultural history, and English history. He joined the faculty in 1989. He is the author of a forthcoming book on the history of American freemasonry, 1730-1840.

Michael B. Elmes of Holden, Mass., to associate professor of management. Elmes, who joined the WPI faculty in 1980, holds a bachelor's degree in psychology/biology from Union College, a master's in counseling psychology from Colgate University, and a doctorate in business administration from Syracuse University. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of group and intergroup processes, conflict management and innovation and change.

Hamid Johari of Worcester, Mass., to associate professor of mechanical engineering. Johari earned a B.S. in engineering and applied science at the California Institute of Technology and an M.S. and Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronomy at University of Washington, before joining the WPI faculty in 1989. His expertise is in fluid mechanics, turbulent mixing and unsteady and buoyant flows.

Balgoban Nandram of Worcester, Mass., to associate professor of mathematical sciences. Nandram joined the WPI faculty in 1989. He received a B.Sc. in mathematics and physics and a diploma in mathematics education from the University of Guyana, an M.Sc. in statistics from the Imperial College, London, and a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Iowa. His research and teaching interests are in Bayesian statistics, survey sampling and small-area estimation, with special emphasis on hierarchical modeling, categorical data analysis, order restricted interference and time series analysis. His areas of application included health science, industry, ecology, and education.

Granted tenure were:

Christopher A. Brown of Norwich, Vt., associate professor of mechanical engineering. Brown received a B.A. in political science from the University of Vermont and an M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from that university. A member of the WPI faculty since 1989, Brown's research and teaching interests focus on machining, surface roughness and micro structure, fractal analysis, biomechanics, ski injury mechanisms and snow mechanics. A certified Swiss ski coach, Brown studied ski injury mechanisms at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he worked as a material scientist. He won the Prix des Materiaux, donated by Ciba-Geigy, for research on the microstructure of machined surfaces. He was a senior reseach engineer for Atlas Copco, a Swedish company, before joining the WPI faculty. Brown's current research focuses on the analysis and design of surface topology, especially random or chaotic topographies, and he holds a patent for an analysis based on fractal geometry.

David B. Dollenmayer of Hopkinton, Mass., associate professor of German. Dollenmayer has taught at WPI since 1988 (tenure-track since 1990). He earned his bachelor's and doctorate in German language and literature at Princeton University. His research and teaching interests are in contemporary society and the culture of German-speaking countries, German language pedagogy, theories of narration, the modern German novel and lyric poetry.

William W. Farr of Sterling, Mass., associate professor of mathematical sciences. Farr, who joined the faculty in 1989, received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of California-Davis, a master's in applied mathematics from U.C.L.A., and a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota. His research and teaching focuses on ordinary and partial differential equations, dynamical systems, local bifurcation theory with symmetry and its application to problems involving chemical reactions or fluid mechanics.

W. Grant McGimpsey of Worcester, Mass., associate professor of chemistry. In 1993, McGimpsey was named the Leonard P. Kinnicutt Professor of Chemistry, a three-year appointment that encourages younger faculty in their professional development. He received his B.S. and M.S. in chemistry from Brock University and his Ph.D. from Queens University, all in Canada. McGimpsey's research and teaching interests are in photochemistry, multiphoton chemistry, upper excited states, reaction intermediates, laser flash photolysis and photoacids. He has been a member of the WPI faculty since 1989.

Promoted were:

Frederick L. Hart of North Brookfield, Mass., to professor of civil and environmental engineering. Hart, who joined the faculty in 1978, is a graduate of the University of Connecticut with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering, a master's degree in sanitary engineering, and a doctorate in environmental engineering. His areas of interest and expertise are in environmental engineering, water distribution and backflow systems for fire sprinklers.

Nicholas K. Kildahl of Worcester, Mass., to professor of chemistry. Kildahl, a faculty member since 1976, received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Purdue University and his doctorate in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana. He is an organic chemist with research interests in electrochemistry, the bioinorganic chemistry of d-metals, and catalysis by d-metal complexes. Kildahl is involved in teaching introductory chemistry and upper-level courses in inorganic chemistry. Since 1990, he has been interested in developing new approaches to chemical education. He spearheaded the development of a new discovery- and instrument-based introductory chemistry laboratory program that has been on line since 1991 and is currently developing a new introductory chemistry course to be taught using cooperative learning and interactive dialog in place of the traditional lecture.

John M. Trimbur of Cranston, R.I., to professor of English. Trimbur earned a B.A. in history at Stanford University, and an M.A. in American studies and a Ph.D. in English at the State University of New York at Buffalo. A member of the faculty since 1987, his interests are in writing theory, the teaching of writing, cultural studies and modern literature. He developed the Institute's writing program and is co-administrator, with chemistry Professor Stephen J. Weininger, of the technical writing major.

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