Accolades: ATEC Professor, Jonsson School Assistant Dean Honored

Accolades is an occasional News Center feature that highlights recent accomplishments of UT Dallas faculty and students. To submit items for consideration, contact your school’s communication manager.

ATEC Professor Receives Media Art Pioneer Award

Dr. Roger Malina, Arts and Technology Distinguished Chair and professor of arts and technology and of physics has received the Golden Nica award in the category of Visionary Pioneers of Media Art from Prix Ars Electronica, one of the world’s premier media arts competitions. Malina received the award for his work as executive editor of Leonardo, the flagship journal of Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. The MIT Press peer-reviewed journal promotes networking and cross-disciplinary projects among members of the art, science and technology communities.

“ATEC (School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication) draws from the disciplines of engineering, science, art and design,” said Dr. Anne Balsamo, the school’s dean who also is the Arts and Technology Distinguished University Chair and Arts and Humanities Distinguished Chair. “Our work explores multimodal design, computational media and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) pedagogy. Roger Malina’s work at Leonardo exemplifies this transdisciplinary design approach to STEAM education. We celebrate his receiving the Golden Nica award.”

The Prix accepted 3,046 entries from 85 countries for consideration in the 2018 awards. The Golden Nicas were awarded at a September gala in Linz, Austria.

Ars Electronica said Leonardo “has nurtured transnational and interdisciplinary collaborative projects in the USA and abroad, propagating and documenting the most creative and most promising ideas of our time.”

Malina said, “I was very pleased at the award as it recognizes the art, science and technology community exemplified by the ATEC innovative program at UT Dallas. But it also recognizes the importance of transgenerational collaboration and practice. Some of the people who founded Leonardo in 1968 are still involved and working with new young STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) to STEAM professionals.”

Jonsson School Assistant Dean Named ASCE Fellow

Tarun Basu, assistant dean for facilities management in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, was recently named a fellow by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the oldest engineering society in the United States.

“It is gratifying to be recognized by my peers for my contributions in developing solutions to a number of complex structural mechanics problems,” Basu said. “It is a big personal honor.”

The ASCE includes more than 150,000 members from 177 countries. Only 3 percent of its members are awarded the status of fellow, typically after years of service, attaining a professional engineer license and election from its membership application review committee.

Basu has worked in structural mechanics, facilities management and management consulting for more than 40 years and has been a member of the ASCE since 1971. At UT Dallas he directs all facility-related functions of the Jonsson School, including setting up infrastructure for faculty research activities, upgrading facilities to meet current standards and maintaining facilities operations. He also developed facilities for the new Engineering and Computer Science West building.

“Tarun truly deserves this recognition,” said Dr. Poras Balsara, interim dean of the Jonsson School. “He is very dedicated to his work and ensures that our facilities are world-class. His service toward faculty, staff and students is highly commendable.”

Before coming to UT Dallas, Basu worked for more than 25 years at private companies. He holds a master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Calcutta, a civil engineering post-master’s degree from Columbia University and a master’s degree in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University.