Auburn Research magazine, Fall/Winter 2022

Dr. Lauren Beckingham, assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, received her latest Early Career honor from the Department of Energy, which awarded $749,999 toward her research into subsurface hydrogen storage — a promising means of large-scale, long-term energy storage that could boost renewable energy and reduce atmospheric CO2 emissions.

In 2019, Beckingham received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development award for research into improving simulation of mineral reaction rates. In 2021, she became the first recipient of the Emerging Investigator award from the Journal of Applied Geochemistry presented by the International Association of Geochemistry.

Dr. Laura Bilenker, assistant professor in the Department of Geosciences, is the recipient of a $257,214 award funded by the Petrology and Geochemistry Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR, to classify iron ore deposits in Puerto Rico. Bilenker will collaborate with Dr. Tom Hudgins from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, who is also an affiliate faculty member of Auburn University’s Department of Geosciences. Student researchers involved in the three-year project will gain hands-on experience in techniques including field mapping, microscopic observations, magnetite trace element and stable isotope geochemistry, as well as garnet trace element geochemistry and geochronology.

Dr. Evelyne M. Bornier’s co-authored book Parcours Louisianais: Panorama de la littérature francophone de Louisiane de ses origines à 1900 was released by UL Press in June. Bornier is a professor of French in the Department of World Languages, Literatures & Cultures. The book was co-authored with Dr. Margaret Marshall, a renowned Louisiana Creole and Cajun linguist.

The book offers a unique collection of Louisiana poems, fables, tales, novels, song lyrics and historical texts in French, with light works from the 1680s to 1900 that reflect the diversity of voices present throughout Louisiana’s history.

Bornier is also the author of Autour de Suzanne Césaire, Manifestes cannibales ou comment repenser les Antilles, recently published in France by Éditions Passage(s).

The Mormon History Association, or MHA, honored Goodwin-Philpott Professor of Religion Dr. Adam Jortner in the Department of History with its annual Best Book Award for his latest work, No Place for Saints: Mobs and Mormons in Jacksonian America.

Jortner’s book follows the Mormon church from its beginning through its expulsion from the state of Missouri in the mid-1830s and argues how Mormonism and violent anti-Mormonism shaped American religious history. MHA recognized No Place for Saints with the Best Book Award for excellence in Mormon history scholarship.

No Place for Saints is available in bookstores and online.

The Operations and Supply Chain Management division of the Academy of Management has conferred its 2022 Distinguished Scholar Award upon Harbert Eminent Scholar Dr. Dave Ketchen.

Ketchen’s research interests include entrepreneurship and franchising, strategic supply chain management, and the determinants of superior organizational performance. In addition to his academic publications, he has written for The Wall Street Journal and The Hill. Ketchen is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Pennsylvania State University Smeal Graduate Distinguished Achievement Award, the Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award, and Auburn’s Creative Research and Scholarship Award.

Dr. Wenying Li, an assistant professor in the Auburn University College of Agriculture’s Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology, has received the 2021 American Journal of Agricultural Economics Outstanding Article Award for his work, “Intrahousehold Economics of Scale with Application to Food Assistance and Work Incentive Programs.”

Li said the project on which the award-winning paper is based is a pilot study of a larger research plan that may involve future government collaborations. One aim of the work is to evaluate the poverty line threshold for various types of households and to better conceptualize, define and estimate real-life costs associated with raising children.

Dr. Mehdi Sadi, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, received a two-year, $174,923 grant from the National Science Foundation. With the funding, Sadi will utilize emerging magnetic random-access memory, or MRAM, and chiplet-based packaging technologies to optimally design on-chip and off-chip memory systems for artificial intelligence and deep learning hardware. The project aims to increase cell phone and computer graphics processing unit performance capabilities without increasing device size.

Dr. Cheryl Seals, the Charles W. Barkley Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, was one among the 30 academicians selected to Drexel University’s Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering and Science, or ELATES, Fellowship program for 2022-23. Seals was nominated by senior leadership for the intensive, yearlong program, which includes personal and leadership development in Philadelphia. Seals is a leading researcher in human-centered AI and advanced learning technologies.

Dr. Di Tian, an assistant professor in the College of Agriculture’s Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences, has been named a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, Award. The total award is $574,706 over five years, co-funded by the NSF Hydrologic Sciences and NSF Climate and Large-Scale Dynamics programs. Tian will investigate underlying drivers of agricultural flash droughts using machine learning-based causal inference analysis, develop and evaluate sub-seasonal agricultural flash drought forecasts using deep learning approaches and assess changes in agricultural flash drought under contemporary and future climate.