In its biggest class of inductees to date, the prestigious Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida (ASEMFL) welcomed four University of Florida engineering faculty members to its roster this year.
Among the new inductees are UF’s Ageliki “Lily” Elefteriadou, Ph.D., Barbara Goldsby Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering; Fan Ren, Ph.D., a distinguished chemical engineering professor; Sartaj Sahni, Ph.D., a distinguished Computer and Information Science and Engineering professor; and Cherie Stabler, Ph.D., a professor and department chair for the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering.
“We welcome our new ASEMFL members. Their lifelong dedication, creativity and talent have resulted in critical and impactful advances in their fields with resulting benefits to society,” said ASEMFL President Hortensia Amaro.
Inductees are selected based on outstanding research contributions and innovations with consequential impacts in the fields of science, engineering or medicine.
Ageliki “Lily” Elefteriadou
“I was thrilled to find out I was inducted,” said Elefteriadou. “It’s a great organization with leaders in science and in medicine.”
ASEMFL inducted Elefteriadou for her work’s global impact on transportation engineering, highway capacity analysis, advanced transportation technologies and traffic management.
“My research is related to transportation engineering, primarily how much traffic can get through and how to design highway facilities to improve graphic operations,” Elefteriadou said. “My recent research has been on how to leverage the capabilities of autonomous vehicles, to make the system more efficient. A lot of attention has been on safety aspects, but I’m looking at it from the operations and capacity perspective — how do you coordinate the movement of all these little robots to make things flow better.”
Sartaj Sahni
ASEMFL inducted Sahni for his contributions to computer science and engineering education, as well as his research in data structures and algorithms.
Sahni is well known for writing textbooks on data structures and computer algorithms, as well as his pioneering research in approximation algorithms for NP-hard problems — a class of computational problems with no efficient solution algorithm.
Sahni said he developed some of the earliest approximation algorithms and schemes for NP-hard problems, as well as general techniques to develop approximation algorithms for NP-hard problems.
He created three important scheduling models for task management: uniform machines, unrelated machines and open shop. He also developed key algorithms for these models.
Cherie Stabler
“I have long admired so many of the long-standing members of this academy and their substantial impacts, so to be a part of this group feels a bit surreal,” Stabler said. “As a Floridian, I am so excited to contribute to the mission of ASEMFL, which is to provide unbiased, expert advice to Florida stakeholders to address key challenges within the state.”
Stabler was inducted for her global contributions and leadership in designing translational materials in cellular transplantation for treating Type 1 diabetes.
“Since I started my doctoral research many years ago, I have been driven to find a way to treat Type 1 diabetes using tissue engineering approaches,” she said. “Current treatments, which rely on the external delivery of insulin, are insufficient to control blood sugar levels and require constant management by the person living with this disease. The potential of cell therapy to completely restore what is lost in a person with Type 1 diabetes is incredibly exciting. Just like any other cellular implant, however, we must engineer a safe house (3D structure) to contain the cells.”
In addition to the 26 new inductees, ASEMFL inducted Ren automatically because he is already a member of other national science societies, including the National Academy of Inventors
Fan Ren
A UF faculty member for 27 years, Ren researches next-generation semiconductor electronic device fabrication technologies and advanced health sensors for emergencies such as heart attacks.
Ren has more than 30 U.S. patents and 13 foreign patents. Other honors include the Gordon E. Moore Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Solid State Science and Technology and the Albert Nerken Award in American Vacuum Society.
He also is a Fellow of American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, American Vacuum Society, American Physical Society, Electrochemical Society, Materials Research Society, IEEE and SPIE.
With more than 250 members, ASEMFL considers researchers for their potential to be inducted into the National Academy of Science, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine. Members of the national academies who reside and/or work in Florida are automatically given membership to ASEMFL.