Four engineers receive UW-Madison Romnes fellowships in 2016

Four engineers of twelve total promising young members of the UW–Madison faculty have been honored with Romnes Faculty Fellowships.

Romnes awards recognize exceptional faculty members who have earned tenure within the last six years. Selected by a Graduate School committee, winners receive an unrestricted $50,000 award for research, supported by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).

The award is named for the late H. I. Romnes, former chairman of the board of AT&T and former president of the WARF Board of Trustees.

The engineering faculty include:

• Nader Behdad, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, studies applied electromagnetics, antennas and biomedical applications of radio frequency energy and microwaves. He received early career awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF), as well as the R.W.P. King and P.L.E. Uslenghi awards from Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Behdad served as the associate editor of IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters from 2011 to 2015.
• Kristyn S. Masters, associate professor of biomedical engineering, uses tissue engineering to create in vitro models of diseased tissues and organs — including heart valves, blood vessels and the cells that initiate wound healing — with the goal of identifying new therapeutic targets for treating the diseases. Masters, who was named a Harvey D. Spangler Faculty Scholar in 2015, is also the faculty director for the Women in Science and Engineering residential learning community.
• Dane Morgan, professor of materials science and engineering, is focused on energy applications — including fuel cells, batteries and nuclear materials — but he also works in the areas of high-pressure geoscience and defect properties in semiconductors. Morgan served as vice president of research at Pellion Technologies, a startup energy technology company, and is a co-director of the Wisconsin Materials Institute.
• William Murphy, the Harvey D. Spangler Professor of Biomedical Engineering and professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation, is co-director of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center and director of the Human MAPs. His research aims to create new biomaterials inspired by the materials found in nature, to understand stem cell behavior and induce tissue regeneration. He has filed 36 patents, co-founded multiple start-up companies, and earned induction as a fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.