University of Texas at Dallas Professors From Mechanical Engineering, Nonprofit Management Receive Honors
Dr. Zhenpeng Qin, associate professor of mechanical engineering at The University of Texas at Dallas, has been named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
Honorees, who are nominated by ASME members and fellows, must have 10 or more years of active practice and at least 10 years of active corporate membership in ASME. The distinction has been given to just over 3% of the organization’s more than 90,000 members worldwide.
In recent years, Qin has led the development of a more accurate rapid test for diagnosing infectious diseases, a technique to open the blood-brain barrier temporarily to deliver medication to the brain, and tools that make it possible to study how neuropeptides affect brain circuits and how they affect behavior in real time. He and his colleagues launched Avsana Labs, of which he is president, to commercialize the rapid-test technology through UT Dallas’ Venture Development Center.
“I am sincerely grateful for the recognition as an ASME fellow, a recognition that embodies the culmination of my dedication and passion in the field of biomechanical engineering and biotransport,” said Qin, Fellow, Eugene McDermott Professor at UTD. “It is with utmost appreciation that I acknowledge the invaluable support, mentorship and collaboration from esteemed colleagues and students, whose collective efforts have propelled our research endeavors in developing nanoengineering tools to better understand, diagnose and treat brain dysfunction.”
In addition to his primary appointment in mechanical engineering, he is an affiliated faculty member in UTD’s Department of Bioengineering and an adjunct faculty member in UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Department of Surgery.
Qin’s research has been funded by the American Heart Association; Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas; Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs; National Institutes of Health; and National Science Foundation. He has received numerous honors for his research, including the 2022 Y.C. Fung Early Career Award from the ASME.
Professor Wins Research, Mentoring Awards
Dr. Meghna Sabharwal
Dr. Meghna Sabharwal, professor of public and nonprofit management in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas, has won a pair of awards this spring honoring her work in public administration scholarship.
Sabharwal received the Sylvester Murray Mentoring Award from the Conference of Minority Public Administrators and the Rosemary O’Leary Prize, which recognizes excellent scholarship on women in public administration, from the International Research Society for Public Management (IRSPM).
The Murray Award, which honors the mentoring legacy of Dr. Sylvester Murray, professor of urban studies and public administration at Cleveland State University, is given to an academic or practitioner with a track record of mentoring and supporting students or young professionals.
“As a mentor, my primary goal is to help my students achieve their full potential and prepare them for success in their future careers,” Sabharwal said. “I take great pride in not only helping them develop their research and writing skills, but also in guiding them to build their professional networks, present at conferences and publish their work.
“Nothing brings me greater joy than seeing my students thrive and knowing that I played a part in their success.”
Sabharwal and two of her former doctoral students — Trang Hoang MPA’15, PhD’19 and Jiwon Suh PhD’18 — won the Rosemary O’Leary Prize for a paper on organizational justice published in the May/June 2022 print edition of Public Administration Review. The prize is named for Dr. Rosemary O’Leary, a public management scholar and previous IRSPM Routledge Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.
“One of the reasons this award is so meaningful to me is that it is a critical area of study, and I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the field,” Sabharwal said. “Working with my former doctoral students was an enriching experience, and our relationship helped us produce high-quality research.”
Hoang is now an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha, and Suh is an assistant professor of public affairs and planning at UT Arlington.