Professors receive award for chemical engineering
UT engineering professors Donald Paul and Nikolaos Peppas received the 2008 Founders Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Field of Chemical Engineering on Monday from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
The Founders Award is the highest award given by the institute, Paul said. Usually the American institute selects one person each year, but as part of its 100th anniversary, the institute chose four.
“What is really amazing is out of the four awarded, two were UT professors,” Paul said. “It was quite a big shock for both of us, but we are both quite pleased.”
Established in 1965, the award honors “an outstanding National Academy Engineering member or foreign associate who has upheld the ideals and principles” of the Academy, according to the Academy’s Web site.
Honorees are selected based on the summation of their careers, Paul said.
Both professors have many accomplishments that could have propelled this honor.
Peppas is the Fletcher Pratt Chaired Professor of Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Pharmacy at UT. He has more than 1,025 refereed publications and holds 35 U.S. and international patents.
Paul is the Ernest Cockrell, Senior Chair in Engineering at UT, serves as director of the Texas Materials Institute and is the editor of the Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research Journal.
“I do work a lot, but it’s worth it,” Paul said. “I have a nice plaque on the wall now to prove it.”
— Lindsey Morgan
Judge dismisses indictments against Dick Cheney, others
RAYMONDVILLE, Texas — A judge dismissed eight indictments Monday brought by a South Texas prosecutor against high-profile figures including Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and a state senator.
The order by Administrative Judge Manuel Banales ended two weeks of proceedings that some courtroom veterans declared the most bizarre they had ever witnessed.
It also began to dim the lights on the rocky tenure of outgoing Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra, who even in thorough defeat saw the outcome as confirmation of the very conspiracy he had pursued.
“I expected it,” Guerra said immediately after the hearing. “The system is going to protect itself.”
On Nov. 17 a Willacy County grand jury returned eight indictments. Three of those targeting private prison operator The GEO Group, state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. and lastly Cheney and Gonzales, focused on the nexus of privately run prisons and politicians.
One alleged that Cheney’s personal investment in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies, presented a conflict of interest, allowing him to profit from the growing detention centers where inmates have been alleged victims of abuse. Gonzales was accused of using his position to stop an investigation into abuses at a federal detention center in Willacy County. Lucio’s indictment alleged that the Brownsville Democrat used his position to profit as a private consultant to the prison companies.
Banales dismissed the indictment against Lucio Monday because it failed to address whether Lucio knew he was only being hired by private prison companies as a consultant because he was a state senator.
Later, Banales dismissed that indictment and the other seven because Tony Canales, attorney for The GEO Group, showed that on the day the indictments were handed up, two alternates were part of the 10-member grand jury. Those alternates not been properly substituted.
Be the first to comment on this article!