Washington D.C. -- Four faculty members from the University of South Florida, Tampa Bay, have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS): Yogi D. Goswami, Alan R. Hevner, Robert H. Tykot, and Michael J. Zaworotko. Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. The Association of American Universities (AAU) recognizes AAAS Fellows as an indicator of the distinction of an institution's faculty.
This year 539 members have been awarded this honor by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Saturday, 18 February from 8 to 10 a.m. at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2012 AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
This year's AAAS Fellows will be formally announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of the journal Science on 23 December 2011.
As part of the Section on Engineering, Dr. Yogi D. Goswami was elected as an AAS Fellow for his distinguished contributions to research, development and education in renewable energies, particularly innovative work in solar thermal power generation, and for upholding rigorous scientific discourse as chief editor of Solar Energy. Goswami is the John & Naida Ramil Professor and co-director of the Clean Energy Research Center at the University of South Florida (USF). He conducts fundamental and applied research on Solar Power and various other applications of solar energy. Within the field of Renewable Energy he has published as author/editor 16 books, 16 book chapters, 6 conference proceedings and 118 refereed technical papers. He has delivered 51 keynote and plenary lectures at major international conferences. He holds 14 U.S. patents, 1 world-wide patent and 7 patents pending. Goswami has served as the president of the International Solar Energy Society (ISES), a governor of ASME-International, senior vice president of ASME and president of the International Association for Solar Energy Education. He is a charter member of the National Academy of Inventors (http://www.academyofinventors.org).
As part of the Section on Information, Computing & Communication, Dr. Alan R. Hevner was elected as an AAAS Fellow for his distinguished research contributions to the field of computer sciences, particularly in the areas of design science research, Cleanroom software engineering, and distributed database systems. Hevner is a widely respected scholar and "thought leader" for the use of design science research in the information systems field. He recently completed a two-year assignment as a program manager at the National Science Foundation. Hevner holds the Citigroup/Hidden River Chair of Distributed Technology and was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the field of design sciences at the 2009 International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology. His research interests include information systems development, software engineering, distributed database systems, health care information systems and telecommunications.
As part of the Section on Anthropology, Dr. Robert H. Tykot was elected as an AAAS Fellow for his distinguished contributions to archaeological materials science, notably obsidian and marble, and bioarchaeology, especially maize and paleodiets, and for service to American and Italian archaeological societies. A professor in the department of anthropology at USF, Tykot specializes in archaeological science, in particular the application of elemental and isotopic methods of analysis on human bone and teeth to measure dietary practices and mobility; on obsidian, marble, and ceramics to determine sources and reconstruct ancient trade and transport; and on copper, silver, and gold-based metals to assess their composition and alloying technologies. He has well over 100 formal publications since coming to USF in 1996, including 10 this year (2011). Tykot is also president-elect for the International Society for Archaeological Sciences.
As part of the Section on Chemistry, Dr. Michael J. Zaworotko was elected as an AAAS Fellow for his distinguished contributions to solid-state chemistry and crystal engineering, as associate editor of Crystal Growth & Design, and for academic leadership. Zaworotko has served as professor of chemistry at USF since 1999. His research interests lie in the field of solid state chemistry and its relevance to pharmaceutical and energy related materials. He has published over 300 peer reviewed papers and patents, has an h-index of 63 and in 2011, Thomson-Reuters listed him as the 20th highest impact chemist in the world since 2000. He is a charter member of the National Academy of Inventors.
The tradition of AAAS Fellows began in 1874. Currently, members can be considered for the rank of Fellow if nominated by the steering groups of the Association's 24 sections, or by any three Fellows who are current AAAS members (so long as two of the three sponsors are not affiliated with the nominee's institution), or by the AAAS chief executive officer.
Each steering group then reviews the nominations of individuals within its respective section and a final list is forwarded to the AAAS Council, which votes on the aggregate list.
The Council is the policymaking body of the Association, chaired by the AAAS president, and consisting of the members of the board of directors, the retiring section chairs, delegates from each electorate and each regional division, and two delegates from the National Association of Academies of Science.
The University of South Florida, Tampa Bay (http://www.usf.edu), is a high-impact, global research university dedicated to student success. USF is classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in the top tier of research universities, a distinction attained by only 2.2 percent of all universities. It is ranked 44th in total research expenditures and 34th in federal research expenditures for public universities by the National Science Foundation. The USF System has an annual budget of $1.5 billion, an annual economic impact of $3.7 billion, and serves 47,000 students in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota-Manatee and Lakeland.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science (http://www.sciencemag.org) as well as Science Translational Medicine (http://www.sciencetranslationalmedicine.org) and Science Signaling (http://www.sciencesignaling.org). AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS (http://www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education, and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, http://www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.