Four
CSULB faculty members honored
By Akiko Sugimori
Summer On-line Forty-Niner
Cal
State Long Beach recognized and honored
four of its professors, Anastassios Chassiakos,
Stephen Cooper, Hamid Rahai and Jose Sanchez
with the campus’ 2002-03 Distinguished Faculty
Scholarly and Creative Activities Award
last month
Chassiakos, the chairman of the engineering
technology department, has been a full-time
faculty member of CSULB since 1989.
“There are certain aspects of everybody’s
work that stand out, and in my case, one
of the things I’m very proud of is the number
of citations of my work,” Chassiakos said
in press release. “The number of citations
refers to how many people read publications
and reference your publications in other
materials. I have quite a high number of
citations — more than 250 citations of my
work — and I think that was a very important
factor in my selection.”
His specialty is the area of control systems
and neutral networks. “It is basically a
way to initiate the computational performance
of the brain,” he stated.
Chassiakos has received a number of grants
at CSULB with his background in engineering
from National Tech University in Greece,
a master’s degree from Purdue University
and a doctorate from USC. One of the grants
is a NASA project that the agency calls
the next generation space telescope, which
is a new concept that will replace the Hubbell
Telescope when the time comes. The experience
at NASA leads him to be asked to participate
in a new NASA center, a university research
center at CSU Los Angeles.
English professor, Cooper started at CSULB
as a part-time faculty member in 1984, became
full-time in 1989 and started his tenure-track
position in 1997. After he earned a bachelor’s
degree in English at UCLA, he obtained an
MFA in creative writing from UC Irvine and
his doctorate in English from USC.
“Cal State Long Beach has been my home for
nearly 20 years,” Cooper said. “We have
many fantastic instructors, and our students
are the best. Having taught at both at UC
and USC, I really prefer CSULB’s students,
who are open to learning and willing to
work at it.”
Since 1994, he has published five books.
The last four have all been on the American
writer, John Fante whose novels and stories
were once almost forgotten. One of these
books, “The John Fante Reader,” published
in 2002, became a “Daily Pick” of Booksense.com,
spent two weeks on the Los Angeles Times
bestsellers list and was favorably reviewed
by the New York Times and the International
Herald Tribune. The other his publication,
“Full of Life: A Bibliography of John Fante,”
was the first in-depth look at the writer
whose 1939 novel “Ask the Dust” is regarded
as an American masterpiece, and named one
of the best books of 2000 by the Los Angeles
Times Book Review.
“I try to teach with the same passion for
my subjects [creative writing, literature
and film] that I bring to my own work,”
Cooper explained his secret philosophy of
teaching. “If I can convey this passion
to my students, then we all succeed.”
Rahai, a professor in the mechanical and
aerospace engineering department, has been
at CSULB since 1989. He started his lecture
when he was a graduate student at UC Irvine.
“My teaching philosophy is that to offer
my students the overall picture of why we
are studying these subjects first and then
go through details of analyses and their
applications,” Rahai said. “I think my continuous
involvement in research and developments
provided me with more insight into the importance
and applications of different subjects and
I always relay this information to my students
during my lectures.”
His areas of research are aerodynamics,
convective heat transfer and turbulence.
He has received grants and contracts from
Southern California Gas Company, METRANS,
California Energy Commission, US Transcom/Marad,
Hayden Industries, Eminen Co., CSULB Alumni
Association and 49er shops. Rahai has established
a Center for Energy and Environmental Research
and Services in the College of Engineering
at CSULB.
“CSULB
is a great campus and it has a great potential,”
he said. “We have come a long way in 20
years and I think we have a great future.”
Jose Sanchez, a faculty member in the department
of film and electronic arts, has been at
CSULB since 1988. He obtained his bachelor’s
degree from the Universidad Autonoma de
Guadddalajara in Mexico, and master’s and
doctorate in speech, communication and theater
(radio, TV and film) from University of
Michigan.
In
2002, Sanchez won the Audience Award for
Best Short at the Ibero-American Film Festival
of Montreal with his film, “News for Manuela
on the Death of Bolivar.” He also won the
CSU Rosebud Award for his achievement in
media arts and education, the Independent
Feature Film Market Fellowship and the Rackham
Dissertation/Thesis Grant.
“It
was an honor to receive this award,” he
commented in a press release at CSULB. “Awards
like these reflect a collaborative effort
between the university, which provides the
opportunities to develop scholarly and creative
work, and faculty, who bring this experience
into the classroom.”
The
Distinguished Faculty Scholarly and Creative
Activities Awards are given to selected
faculty for their excellence in the visual
and performing arts, in the publication
of scholarly works, and in the completion
of sponsored research. The awards are limited
to tenured associate and full professors
and librarians of equivalent rank.
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