December 2015 Science Journal

Faculty Spotlight
Award for Excellence in
Teaching. The award honors
excellence in teaching at the
undergraduate level across all
Penn State colleges and
campuses. Malcos is one of six
awardees for 2015. Malcos
teaches introductory courses
in physiology, mammalian
anatomy, and cell biology. She
uses an innovative approach to
ensure that students are
actively engaged in learning
despite the large size of these
classes.
Mercedes
Richards,
professor of
astronomy and
astrophysics,
has been
elected as a
Councilor of the American
Astronomical Society (AAS).
The AAS was founded in 1899
and is the major organization
of professional astronomers in
North America with over
7,000 members. Richards is
one of three Councilors elected
this year from among the
membership of the AAS. She
will serve a three-year term
on the AAS Council, which is
the governing body of the AAS
and is responsible for the
management of the affairs and
property of the society.
Marylyn
Ritchie,
professor of
biochemistry
and molecular
biology, and
the director of
the Center for Systems
Genomics, has been named the
Paul Berg Professor of
Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology. The professorship was
created in 1995 by an
anonymous donor in honor of
Paul Berg, a 1948 Penn State
graduate who was named a
Distinguished Alumnus in
1974 and earned the Nobel
Prize in 1980 for developing a
method to map the structure
and function of DNA.
Song Tan,
professor of
biochemistry
and molecular
biology, has
been selected
to receive the
2015 Penn State Faculty
Scholar Medal for
Outstanding Achievement in
the Life and Health Sciences.
Established in 1980, the
award recognizes scholarly or
creative excellence represented
by a single contribution or a
series of contributions around
a coherent theme. A committee
of faculty peers selects
candidates after reviewing
nominations together with
outside evaluations from peer
institutions.
David Weiss,
professor and
associate head
of the
Department of
Physics, has
been elected
as chair of the Division of
Atomic, Molecular and Optical
Physics (DAMOP) of the
American Physical Society
(APS). DAMOP is the oldest
and third largest division of
the APS, with over 3,000
members. The chair is an
elected position with
administrative responsibility
for all the division's
operations, including the
1,100-attendee annual
meeting.
New Faculty
Jeffrey S. Case, assistant
professor of mathematics, is a
geometric analyst interested
in global problems in Riemannian,
Lorentzian, conformal,
and CR geometry. He uses
ideas from conformal geometry
to better understand CR
geometry and smooth metric
measure spaces. He applies
these ideas to study optimization
problems involving the
“shape” of manifolds and to
study inequalities important
in differential equations. Prior
to joining Penn State, Case
was a National Science Foundation
Postdoctoral Fellow
at Princeton University from
2010 to 2013 and an instructor
in mathematics at Princeton
from 2011 to 2015. He
earned master's and doctoral
degrees in mathematics at the
University of California, Santa
Barbara in 2007 and 2010,
respectively, and a bachelor’s
degree in mathematics and
computer science at Minnesota
State University in 2005.
Jack Huizenga,
assistant
professor
of mathematics,
focuses his
research on
algebraic
geometry. He studies the
geometry of curves and
surfaces, with a particular emphasis
on moduli spaces of vector
bundles and interpolationtype
problems. Prior to joining
the faculty at Penn State,
Huizenga was a research
assistant professor and
National Science Foundation
Postdoctoral Fellow at the
University of Illinois at
Chicago from 2012 to 2015. He
earned master's and doctoral
degrees in mathematics at
Harvard University in 2008
and 2012, respectively, and a
bachelor's degree in mathematics
at the University of
Chicago in 2007.
Jesse R.
Lasky,
assistant
professor of
biology,
studies the
processes that
generate and maintain biodiversity.
His research has
applications in conservation
and agriculture. He is particularly
interested in the causes
of genetic variation across the
geographical range of a
species and how this variation
changes over time. In particular,
he is interested in how
plant populations adapt to
local environmental conditions
and how that adaptation is
affected by species interactions.
Prior to joining the
faculty at Penn State, Lasky
was an Earth Institute Fellow
from 2012 to 2014 and a
postdoctoral researcher from
2014 to 2015 at Columbia
University. He earned a
doctoral degree in ecology,
evolution, and behavior at the
University of Texas at Austin
in 2012 and a bachelor's
degree in biology at Kenyon
College in 2004.
X. Lance
Lian, assistant
professor
of biomedical
engineering
and biology,
focuses his
research on understanding
human development and
disease by applying the
principles of developmental
biology to experiments with
human-derived stem cells, and
by experimentally editing the
genetic code. In addition to
gaining basic knowledge of
human development at the
cellular and- molecular level,
Lian's research has application
in the development of
therapies to treat degenerative
diseases like spinal-cord
injury, heart disease, and
diabetes. Lian also plans to
study stem-cell-derived
immunotherapy as a cancer
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Penn State Eberly College of Science
SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015 45