Pitt students and faculty rack up honors and awards

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected to its membership Peter L. Strick, a… The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected to its membership Peter L. Strick, a professor of neurobiology and psychiatry and co-director of Pitt’s Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. By becoming a member of the 200-year-old academy, Strick, who has researched the neural connections that influence human behavior, will join the company of 150 Nobel laureates, 50 Pulitzer Prize winners, and leaders such as George Washington and Winston Churchill.

Bob Evans, founder of the restaurant chain that bears his name, has been named honorary chair of the Welsh Nationality Classroom committee. Evans, who is of Welsh heritage, has been active in a number of Welsh causes, including the Madog Center for Welsh Studies at Rio Grande University. The Welsh Nationality Room is one of the seven rooms Pitt plans to add to its 26 nationality classrooms.

Pitt junior Patrick Lister was one of five college students across the country to be awarded the American Eagle Outfitters Spirit of Service Award. Lister was commended for his work in the Jumpstart Program in the Hill District, where he teaches 3- and 4-year-old children to read. The Spirit of Service Award includes a $2,500 scholarship.

IBM awarded Ken Jordan, a professor and chairman of Pitt’s Department of Chemistry, its Shared University Research grant for his work using computer models to simulate biomolecules. The grant will provide high-performance computing equipment to Pitt research groups.

Pitt’s School of Medicine faculty nabbed two out of the American Transplant Congress’ three clinical science achievement awards. Steven A. Webber, an associate professor of pediatrics and director of heart and lung transplantation at Children’s Hospital, won the Fujisawa Clinical Science Achievement Award. Webber will use the $25,000 prize to support his research of pediatric heart transplantation. Rakesh Sindhi, an associate professor of surgery and director of pediatric transplantation research at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, won the Wyeth Clinical Science Achievement Award. Sindhi will use his $25,000 prize to fund his research on the effects of anti-rejection drugs on children.