On Tuesday, May 7, 2019 – The Texas A&M Chapter of Sigma Xi awarded a scientist and a communicator with its top honors during a ceremony.
The Outstanding Distinguished Scientist award went to Virender K. Sharma, professor and director of the Program for the Environment and Sustainability, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health. Sharma is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry; an at-large member of the Division of Environmental Chemistry, American Chemical Society; and a member of the President International Fellowship, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His areas of research interest include chemistry and applications of ferrates; inactivation of virus, bacteria and toxins in water and air; removal of emerging contaminants such as antibiotics, estrogens and toxic metals in water; formation, fate and toxicity of silver and gold engineered and natural nanoparticles in aquatic environments; and applications of ferrites to destroy toxins and pollutants under solar light. He received his doctorate from the University of Miami.
The chapter’s Outstanding Science Communicator award went to Clifford Spiegelman, University Distinguished Professor, Department of Statistics, College of Science. Spiegelman is a founding co-editor of Chemometrics and Intelligent Laboratory Systems. In 2015-16, he was the lead chair of the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute’s program on forensic science and was a member of the National Research Council’s bullet lead committee. His research interests include nonparametric smoothing methods, measurement error models, high dimensional inference and estimation, calibration and inverse problems. He holds a doctorate from Northwestern University.