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Celebrating And Investing In Research At SMU

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Ford Research Fellowships Recognize Innovation

Five 2008 Ford Research Fellowships were awarded to the following SMU faculty:

Rhonda Blair, professor of theatre, focuses on the application of cognitive neuroscience to acting processes. She is the author of The Actor, Image and Action: Acting and Cognitive Neuroscience (Routledge, 2008), which describes how she integrates new strategies derived from the sciences into acting. She has received programmatic grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others.

Marc Christensen, department chair and associate professor of electrical engineering, has built a nationally recognized research group in photonics and computational imaging. His work with imaging sensors and micro-mirror arrays has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), among others. In 2007 he received the DARPA Young Faculty Award. He also leads a project with researchers from the University of Delaware, UT-Dallas and Sandia National Laboratory.

Rajani Sudan, associate professor of English, is a specialist in early modern British literature whose research interests include literature and science, cultural representations of imperial identity and cyberculture. Her first book, Fair Exotics: Xenophobic Subjects in English Literature, 1720-1850 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), received a 2002-03 Godbey Authors’ Award for outstanding research by an SMU faculty member. Her upcoming book, Mud, Mortar and Other Technologies of Empire, focuses on non- European contributions to the Age of Enlightenment.

Kumar Venkataraman, associate professor of finance, specializes in market microstructure dynamics and market efficiency. His research has influenced policy debates on the structure of financial markets and has been cited by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. His work has been featured in industry publications and in several books, including The Handbook of World Stock, Derivatives and Commodities Exchanges. In addition, he is an invited member of the National Bureau of Economic Research Working Group on Market Microstructure.

Steven Vik, professor of biological sciences, examines key mechanisms of bioenergetics – the study of how living systems get and use the energy sources required to sustain life. He has made significant contributions to the understanding of the vital enzyme in these processes, the ATP synthase, including its role in the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is essential for nerve functioning, muscular and molecular movement and other vital cellular processes. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Established in 2002 with a $1 million gift from SMU Trustee Gerald J. Ford, the fellowships help the University retain and reward outstanding scholars. Each recipient receives a financial award for research support.