Kudos

Neil Dengler, director of the Office of Gift Planning in UB’s Division of Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement, has been elected president of the WNY Planned Giving Consortium for 2016.

The consortium, founded in Buffalo in 1993, is the local council of the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning, headquartered in Indianapolis. It brings together members of the not-for-profit and professional advisory communities to learn about the design and administration of deferred charitable giving.

William Rapaport, associate professor emeritus, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, is the recipient of the 2015 Barwise Prize from the American Philosophical Association (APA).

Rapaport was presented with the award at the APA’s Eastern Division Meeting held earlier this month in Washington, D.C.

The Barwise Prize is awarded annually by the APA committee on philosophy and computers “for significant and sustained contributions to areas relevant to philosophy and computing by an APA member,” according to the association’s website. Rapaport was recognized for his life-long achievements in research and teaching in the field.

Rapaport has done research and written extensively in the areas of in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, knowledge representation and reasoning, contextual vocabulary acquisition, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, critical thinking and cognitive development. He is also interested in science educational theory and is a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Rapaport is the co-author or co-editor of two books and has written more than 100 articles on topics in computer science, philosophy, cognitive science and education. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

He is a recipient of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy's Covey Award for "senior scholars with a substantial record of innovative research in the field of computing and philosophy broadly conceived.”

Chunming Qiao, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, received the 2015 Distinguished Technical Achievement Award from the IEEE Communications Society’s Communications Switching and Routing Technical Committee.

The award recognizes Qiao’s technical contributions in the fields of communication switching and routing.

He was named an IEEE fellow several years ago for his contributions to both optical and wireless network architecture and protocols.

Qiao received the award at IEEE’s Global Communications Conference Exhibition and Industry Forum, held last month in San Diego.

Deborah Raines, associate professor in the School of Nursing, recently received the 2016 Elsevier Leading Stars in Education (ELSIE) Award for Excellence in Clinical Education from Elsevier.

The ELSIE Awards honor outstanding nurse educators who are committed to improving student and program outcomes through inventive teaching strategies.

Raines is among three educators to receive the award this year from Elsevier, an academic publisher of medical and scientific literature, including the prestigious journals The Lancet and Cell.

“It is an honor to be recognized for this work, which is a direct result of the School of Nursing’s partnership with the maternal-newborn units at Sisters of Charity Hospital,” says Raines.

“Our collaborative work on the Safe Sleep for Baby and quality-improvement projects has resulted in joint presentations and publications with UB nursing students and Sisters Hospital nurses, as well as an outstanding educational experience for our nursing students.”

Raines’ research centers on parenting behaviors, pregnancy and newborn health, and nursing workforce development through innovative education. Her current work centers on using hi-fidelity training simulations — or computerized manikins — to improve infant care transitions from intensive care nurseries to the home.

In addition to publishing more than 75 journal articles, Raines has received numerous awards, including the NLN Award for Outstanding Leadership in Workforce Development from the National League for Nursing.

Raines received a doctorate in nursing administration and information systems from Virginia Commonwealth University, a master’s degree in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Syracuse University.