Accolades is an occasional News Center feature that highlights recent accomplishments of faculty and students at The University of Texas at Dallas. To submit items for consideration, contact your school’s communications manager.
Bioengineering Professor Chosen for Initiative
Dr. Girgis Obaid, assistant professor of bioengineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at UT Dallas, was selected as an Advancing Bioimaging Fellow by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA).
The program is part of RCSA’s Scialog (science+dialog) format, which creates communities of early-career scholars invited from institutions throughout the U.S. and Canada. Participants form multidisciplinary teams to design research projects and pitch them to a committee of leading scientists, which recommends seed funding for the most promising projects.
The new initiative brings together a diverse group of scientists from a wide range of fields to address the challenges involved in enhancing high-resolution imaging of tissues to support science and the treatment of disease.
“The Scialog: Advancing Bioimaging initiative recognizes the importance of cross-disciplinary collaborations in pushing the current boundaries of biomedical imaging. It’s a real privilege to be part of such an exciting endeavor, and I very much look forward to engaging with other fellows at the first annual Scialog meeting,” Obaid said.
The first meeting will be held virtually May 20-21. The initiative is sponsored by RCSA and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, with additional support from the Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation.
Information Systems Professor Receives AIS Award
The Association for Information Systems (AIS) honored Dr. Dawn Owens, clinical associate professor of information systems and director of the information technology and systems undergraduate program in the Naveen Jindal School of Management at UT Dallas, with a Sandra Slaughter Service Award at its 2020 International Conference on Information Systems in December.
Slaughter was a Georgia Institute of Technology professor, a dedicated volunteer leader in AIS and an integral member of the information systems community. The award recognizes longtime AIS members who have provided leadership within the association.
A member of AIS since 2010, Owens serves on its Member Conduct Committee as well as its Student Chapter Advisory Board. She was instrumental in establishing the UT Dallas Association for Information Systems student chapter, which promotes the professional development of undergraduate information systems students through workshops, networking, guest speakers and case competitions.
Owens also is a past chair of the AIS Women’s Network, an association group that supports female scholars in information systems and enables mentorship relationships crucial to speed the success of women in the information systems field.