NEWS
NORMAN, OKLA. – The Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships recognized the recipients of the 2025 Research and Creative Activity Awards during a ceremony held on May 16, 2025, at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.
The ceremony recognized faculty recipients of the awards for excellence in campus-wide research and creative activities, as well as eight recipients of active early career awards, 25 project teams that earned $1 million or more in extramural funding and nine recipients of patents.
Early Career Awards
Eight faculty members were recognized for their active early career grants as well as comparable accolades and awards for faculty members’ early career research and creative activities from agencies such as the National Science Foundation, NASA, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Defense, Simons and the Ecology Society of America. Recipients are Wei Qin, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences; Rui Zhu, an assistant professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering; Alisa Javadi, an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Daniel Becker, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences; Bihui Zhu, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy; Chenghao Wang, an assistant professor in the School of Meteorology and Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainabillity; Alexandra Bentz, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences; and Richard Veras, an assistant professor in the School of Computer Sciences.
Award for Excellence in Research Grants
This year’s Award for Excellence in Research Grants was presented to 25 tenured or tenure-track OU investigators or research teams who obtained extramural sponsored research awards totaling $1 million or more in 2024. These projects were awarded more than $56 million in total.
Patent Awards
Fourteen inventors contributed to nine domestic and international patents received in 2024. These inventions and technological advancements represent innovations from the Gallogly College of Engineering, Gibbs College of Architecture, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, and the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences. Recipients include Professor Roger Harrison, Professor Guifu Zhang, Professor Yan (Rockee) Zhang, Professor Phillip Chilson, Associate Professor Rakhi Rajan, Associate Professor Justin Metcalf, Associate Professor Hamidreza Shebgard, Associate Professor Andres Cavieres Pinilla, Associate Professor Jorge Luis Salazar-Cerreño, Adjunct Assistant Professor Boon Leng Cheong, Research Scientist Tyler Bell, Research Scientist Antonio Segales Espinosa, Research Associate Hernan Suarez Montalvo and Research Associate Joshua Martin.
Award for Excellence in Transdisciplinary, Convergent Research
The Award for Excellence in Transdisciplinary, Convergent Research recognizes leadership in the creation of collaborative initiatives of teams of tenured or tenure-track OU faculty on projects that both demonstrate a deep integration of disciplines toward new configurations of knowledge production and strive toward creating a positive and meaningful societal impact.
The 2024 recipient is the AIMNet: A Transdisciplinary Methane Monitoring Platform Integrating IoT Sensing, Environmental Modeling, and Interactive Data Visualization Technologies. The team is composed of researchers and professors across multiple disciplines, including Principal Investigator Binbin Weng, an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and co-PIs Ming Xue, a professor in the School of Meteorology and director of the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms; Chenghao Wang, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography & Environmental Sustainability and School of Meteorology; Xiao-Ming Hu, a senior research scientist and adjunct associate professor in the School of Meteorology; David Ebert, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and School of Computer Science and the director of the Data Institute for Societal Challenges; and Tim Filley, a professor in the Department of Geography & Environmental Sustainability, School of Geosciences and director of the Institute for Resilient Environmental and Energy Systems.
Award for Excellence in Research, Design, and Creative Expression in the Humanities and the Arts
The Award for Excellence in Research, Design, and Creative Expression in the Humanities and the Fine Arts honors work that offers a transformative new direction in humanistic or creative development. The 2024 recipient is Marcelo Rioseco, an associate professor in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences.
His primary areas of interest include narrative, poetics and politics in Latin America, cultural studies, Latin American films, detective Latin American fiction, and post-dictatorial narratives in the Latin American Southern Cone.
Neal Lane Award for Excellence in Research in the Natural Sciences
Named for the OU alumni, respected scientist, and science advisor Neal Lane, the Neal Lane Award for Excellence in Research in the Natural Sciences recognizes contributions made at a level of importance and impact that garners international visibility and recognition. The 2024 recipient is Zhibo Yang, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences.
His research focuses on mass spectrometry for proteomics and tissue imaging and has developed a miniaturized sampling and ionization device to be coupled with mass spectrometry for single cell analysis.
Award for Excellence in Research in Engineering and Applied Sciences
The VPRP Award for Excellence in Research in Engineering and Applied Science honors exceptional translational research contributions that address major technical, social, and/or economic problems in today’s society, and garners international visibility and recognition. The 2024 recipient is Bayram Saparov, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences.
His interdisciplinary research focuses on the synthesis and characterization of compounds with potential applications as energy materials including photovoltaic and photocatalytic materials, materials for light-emitting diodes and magnetic materials.
Melany Dickens-Ray Award for Excellence in Research Service and Administration
The Award for Excellence in Research Service and Administration honors a staff member who has made exceptional, innovative contributions in support of the research or creative endeavors of OU faculty and staff. These impactful contributions may have been realized recently or demonstrated through career-long service and dedication. The 2024 recipient is Todd Fagin, executive associate director for the Center for Spatial Analysis and lecturer, Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability, College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences.
Lifetime Achievement Award
The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes a faculty member on the OU Norman campus for their outstanding and enduring contributions to research and creative activity over the course of their career. This year’s recipient is Daniel Resasco, Gallogly Chair in Engineering #1 of Chemical Engineering and George Lynn Cross Professor in the School of Sustainable Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering, Gallogly College of Engineering.
Resasco specializes in heterogeneous catalysis and nanostructured materials. He is the author of more than 300 publications and more than 30 industrial patents. His work has been cited more than 34,000 times and his h-index is 96. Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards for his work on heterogeneous catalysis and nanotube synthesis from the American Chemical Society, the Chemistry Institute of Canada, the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York, among others. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering and the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame, a member of the National Academy of Inventors, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Argentina. He is the inventor of a nanotube production process and the founder of SouthWest Nanotechnology. Furthermore, he is editor of Catalysis Reviews and has been editor of Journal of Catalysis, as well as a member of the editorial boards of Journal of Catalysis, Applied Catalysis A, Applied Catalysis B, Chinese J. Catalysis, and Catalysis Reviews. He has been chair of the Catalysis Division of the American Chemical Society and president and co-founder Great Plains Catalysis Society.
The Office of the Vice President congratulates the award recipients and thanks those who took the time and care to submit nominations.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. For more information about the university, visit www.ou.edu.
The University of Oklahoma has awarded nearly $200,000 in pilot seed funding to 20 artificial intelligence projects designed to spark innovation across health care, education, research and digital infrastructure
The National Institutes of Health, in partnership with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has funded a University of Oklahoma study that will investigate how, when and why young adults use e-cigarettes and how that use may relate to health risks. The results will help the FDA make decisions about regulating the makers of e-cigarette products.
The OU Price College of Business has launched a future athletics director program to provide unique training for NCAA Division I athletics department leaders. This executive-level program, developed in partnership with OU Athletics, will host its inaugural cohort in fall 2025.
