Three UB Faculty Members Named SUNY Distinguished Professors

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Three University at Buffalo faculty members have been named SUNY Distinguished Professors for having achieved national or international prominence and an established reputation in their fields of expertise.

The appointments of Douglas H. Clements, professor of learning and instruction, Graduate School of Education; Vladimir V. Mitin, professor and chair of the Department of electrical engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; and Stephen Rudin, professor of radiology and director of the Division of Radiation Physics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, were made by the SUNY Board of Trustees at its meeting on March 11.

The UB faculty members hold three of the five Distinguished Professor appointments made by the board at the meeting. The other two are faculty members at Stony Brook University.

The rank of distinguished professor, the highest faculty rank in the SUNY system, is an order above full professorship and has three co-equal designations: distinguished professor, distinguished service professor and distinguished teaching professor.

"SUNY faculty who receive appointment to the distinguished ranks provide a glimpse of the broad service contributions and the career achievements being made on our campuses across New York state" said SUNY Interim Chancellor John B. Clark. "Each of these individuals has met and exceeded the requirements for this honor and I commend the board of trustees for recognizing their talent and service by approving their appointments to distinguished ranks."

Douglas Clements is nationally recognized as an expert in early childhood mathematics education and the role of computers and technology in education. His work has led to the development of new mathematics curricula, teaching approaches and teacher training initiatives, as well as having a tremendous impact on educational planning and policy, particularly in the area of mathematical literacy and access.

Appointed in 2006 to the President's National Mathematics Advisory Panel, he has served on a number of key federal advisory panels addressing educational policy issues, including the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' curriculum committee.  

Clements' work has been supported through a number of federal grants, most recently a $7.2 million award from the Interagency Education Research Iniatitive. That grant, to Clements and GSE colleagues Julie A. Sarama and Jaekyung Lee, is being used to implement Clements' and Sarama's already successful research-based pre-kindergarten mathematics curriculum on a much wider basis to determine its adaptability and impact, both longitudinally and nationally.

Clements has published more than 100 referred research articles, eight books, 50 book chapters and 200 additional publications. He received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities in 2006,as well as an Exceptional Scholar Award for Sustained Achievement from UB in recognition of his research achievements.

He received his doctorate from UB in 1983 and has taught at the university since 1988.

Vladimir Mitin is one of the world's pre-eminent scholars of nanophononics, the branch of nanotechnology concerned with heat transfer and energy exchange at the nanoscale level. Mitin's work in this area has been instrumental in shaping current understanding of nanoscale thermal management, and has broad-ranging significance, with important applications that include energy efficiency, national security, and medicine.

Mitin helped to develop UB's nanoengineering program, establishing the interdisciplinary UB Center on Hybrid Nanodevices and Systems, and creating one of the best equipped nanoelectronics laboratories in the United States for undergraduates.

In 2005, he received a $750,000 faculty development grant from the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research to conduct multidisciplinary research designed to develop and commercialize multifunctional nanosensors and sensor networks to enhance health care, especially for remote applications, to improve detection of contaminants and to boost advances in quantum communication.

Mitin is the author of more than 430 professional publications, including more than 180 publications in refereed journals and more than 220 conference presentations. He has co-authored three textbooks and four monographs and has delivered more than 70 invited talks.

He has earned numerous honors throughout his career, including the prestigious Humboldt Fellowship, which supported his work at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Germany. He also was chosen to receive the Exceptional Scholar Award for Sustained Achievement from UB.

Mitin earned a doctorate from the Institute of Semiconductors at the Ukranian Academy of Sciences in Kiev, Ukraine.

Stephen Rudin is a world-renowned expert in the field of medical physics. Co-director of the Imaging Division of the Toshiba Stroke Research Center, he is internationally recognized for his award-winning work on scanning beam radiography, region of interest fluoroscopy and applications of new radiologic detectors. His work has major theoretical and clinical implications for medical physics, biomedical engineering and diagnostic radiology, as well as an immediate impact upon patient diagnosis and care, particularly in cases of heart and brain treatment.  

Rudin is certified by the American Board of Health Physics and the American Board of Radiology. He is a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, serving as a member of the AAPM Board of Directors from 2002-05 and as president of the group's upstate New York chapter from 1999-2000.

A UB faculty member since 1977 and director of the university's medical physics program since 1980, he received an Exceptional Scholar Award for Sustained Achievement from UB in 2003. He has authored or co-authored more than 190 scholarly publications and is principal investigator of numerous funded projects, including some supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

A graduate of the University of Chicago, Rudin earned his Ph.D. in medical physics from CUNY.