APRIL 15, 2024

Dear Pratt Faculty and Staff,

Each spring, we take a moment to honor individuals in our community who, over the past year, have truly demonstrated the best of Duke Engineering through their actions and excellence.

I’m delighted to recognize the 2024 recipients of our Pratt School of Engineering Faculty & Staff Awards. All were nominated by students and colleagues for their outstanding service to our school as teachers, researchers, mentors and program leaders.

The recipients will be celebrated at the Engineering Alumni Awards Banquet held at the Washington Duke Inn on Friday, April 26. Faculty and staff who wish to attend should complete the RSVP form today.

Please join me in congratulating each of this year’s award recipients, and thanking them for their many contributions to Pratt and Duke!

Jerome P. Lynch, PhD, F.EMI
Vinik Dean of Engineering

Daniel’s laboratory tightly integrates biomedical data science guided by machine learning and wet-lab experiments to improve critical drug properties such as efficacy, biodistribution, metabolism, toxicity and side-effects. Beyond his impactful research, Daniel is well known as an incredible teacher and mentor, teaching classes ranging from 200-level biomaterials up to 700-level independent studies for ambitious students. Regardless of the level or topic, he is known for fostering a welcoming and supportive classroom environment where every student feels valued and empowered to learn. As one nominator put it, “To spark curiosity and awe even amidst the most challenging and advanced of subjects—this defines the outcome of only the most excellent professors, among whom Dr. Reker is one of the best.”

Shani came to Duke nearly seven years ago with the goal of using her appointment and Duke’s reputation to break down barriers preventing historically marginalized communities from pursuing their dreams in STEM disciplines. And her talent, persistence and focus have produced an incredible array of grants and programs to achieve these goals. Shani’s research efforts into these issues have resulted in over $40 million in funding from public and private sources to support her collaborative research activities. Her nominators had high praise for her work, saying, “Dr. Daily’s profound impact on research, education, and identity inclusion epitomizes the spirit of the Stansell Family Distinguished Research Award.”

Sophia teaches a wide range of courses, not just in her home MEMS department, but also in mathematics and interdisciplinary courses such as Bass Connections. While her specialties lie in structural mechanics and nonlinear dynamics, the full depth of her impact can be best felt in how she helps her peers. For example, she created the Peer Teaching Group, a structured forum where the quality of teaching is discussed in depth and where faculty help each other with their teaching by providing thoughtful and constructive feedback. According to one of her nominators, “She is one of the most thoughtful and well-prepared teachers I know. She engages the students intellectually while making them feel comfortable—an ideal learning environment. She knows all the students’ names, carefully prepares small group assignments, and thoroughly plans each lecture, exercise, and quiz.”

Adrian has spent much of his career working with thermodynamics and convection heat transfer, which have improved the performance of engineering systems, and on his own original constructal theory, which states that for a system to survive, it must evolve to increase its access to flow. This insight has allowed Adrian to predict natural design and its evolution in engineering, scientific, and social systems. But he is also just as insightful in the classroom, inspiring students to engage more deeply with the material and to pursue their own inquiries outside of the classroom. His nominators said, “What truly sets Dr. Bejan apart is his transformative approach to education. He doesn't simply deliver lectures; he ignites a passion for learning by challenging conventional ideas and inspiring a thirst for knowledge.”

Roger is a lifelong Blue Devil, having earned both his undergraduate and doctoral degrees at Duke in the ‘60s, and is one of our longest-tenured faculty or staff members. No stranger to this list of honors, he won the Klein Family Distinguished Teaching Award in 2013 and continues to influence the lives of those around him. A faculty network member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and a Bass Fellow, Roger’s interdisciplinary interests and acuity for forming long-lasting bonds has left an indelible mark on Duke Engineering as well as his students. As one nominator wrote, “I learned not only science from him, but so many other life lessons that I carry with me now. He has made such an impact in my life in this short period of time.”

Angela came to Duke Engineering as a senior program coordinator in 2019 before taking on the role of assistant director of graduate studies for the ECE department last year. Having worked for North Carolina public schools for nearly a decade before joining our school, she brings a strong, innovative leading style to this important role. It is clear that Angela views her position as not just a job, but as a continuation of her calling, with one of her nominators saying, “The numerous supporting letters that accompany this nomination address many of Angela’s specific accomplishments and signify the respect she has earned from the various student, faculty, staff, and administrative stakeholders across the university. The only challenge in assembling those letters was in limiting the list of people from whom I requested them.”

Holly joined Duke’s Shared Materials Instrumentation Laboratory (SMiF) in 2016 as a research and development engineer, but in recent years, her development activities have extended far beyond the laboratory. She leads a wide range of community engagement programs and activities, partnering with over 40 schools, organizations and groups. Just last year alone, SMiF’s outreach teams traveled to visit over 1800 K-12 students at local schools, museums and community centers, with an additional 700 students coming to Duke’s campus to participate in activities at the SMIF facility. One of the largest community events in her portfolio is the annual Girls STEM Day@Duke, which hosts over 140 girls and their families along with over 100 volunteers from over 40 local companies working in STEM fields in the region. Even the pandemic couldn’t slow Holly down, as she quickly grabbed the laboratory’s mobile scanning electron microscope and set up a livestream video series to engage students across the country with explorations of the tiniest details of everyday objects. Her nominators said, “Holly has been committed to our core community values that include enhancing diversity and inclusion in STEM fields, and increasing access and familiarity to STEM, particularly for underrepresented individuals.”

Liz joined our BME department in 2021 as a lab research analyst before quickly climbing into the role of a lab administrator, where she supports undergraduate and graduate level courses that span topics including biomaterials, electrophysiology and biomolecular engineering. Besides making her colleagues and students feel welcome with a great sense of humor and serving as a mentor and confidant, her resourcefulness in contributing and implementing ideas for BME’s large and complex educational program have been instrumental to the department’s recent successes. One of her nominators wrote, “Reflecting on Liz's remarkable contributions to our community, I realize that without her, my academic journey would look drastically different—she is the cornerstone of my success and resilience within the engineering school.”

Mark is the founding director of Duke’s Shared Materials Instrumentation Facility (SMiF), a cornerstone of much of the nanoscale research and fabrication that takes place within Duke Engineering and the rest of the Duke. For more than 20 years, Mark has helped build the SMiF into a world-class research facility while opening doors not just for Duke’s faculty, but for academic and industry partners across the region and state. And if you have any doubt about his commitment to SMIF, just look at his car; even his license plate dons the acronym. His nominators said, “His exemplary record of accomplishment, tireless dedication, and sustained impact on the Pratt School of Engineering make him a standout candidate for this award.”