Alumni celebrated at College of Engineering Alumni Awards ceremony

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Linda Broadbelt, Nancy Dawes, Bill Dawson, Aisha Barry, Alissa Par
Linda Broadbelt, Nancy Dawes, Bill Dawson, Aisha Barry, Alissa Park

On April 30, 2022, the College of Engineering held its Excellence in Engineering and Architecture Alumni Awards celebration for 2020 and 2021 awardees. Among those honored were Nancy Dawes, an elite engineer instrumental in transforming the Olay brand into a $2.5 billion powerhouse; Aisha Barry, a strategic businesswoman who has held executive leadership positions at Medronic and Advanced Sterilization Products; and Alissa Park, a world leader in climate change research.

Also recognized were Linda Broadbelt and Bill Dawson, who won 2020 awards (see stories in the Fall 2020 issue of Koffolt News). 

“We’re thrilled to celebrate these exceptional alumni,” said Dean Ayanna Howard. “These Buckeyes not only inspire us and make us proud, they also illustrate how engineers benefit society and improve our world.”

Nancy Dawes, '81 BS - Benjamin G. Lamme Meritorious Achievement Medal

Nancy Coultrip Dawes ('81 BS) is the first woman to receive the Benjamin G. Lamme Meritorious Achievement Medal, one of the most prestigious COE awards, since its inception in 1930.

Dawes is a rare cross-disciplinary serial innovator, business builder and elite technologist whose 38-year career had a major impact at Procter & Gamble. She was the first woman at P&G to be named a Research Fellow in P&G's prestigious Victor Mills Society, which recognizes less than one percent of the company's top technologists.

Her "Dawes Code" framework for breakthrough innovation ensures that all facets of a product work together to create satisfied customers. She applied the framework to the process development of food, hair, and beauty products to create multiple industry-defining products that materially transformed P&G’s business results across Duncan Hines, Pringles (tripling the size of its US business), Head and Shoulders, and Oil of Olay, where she designed key products and benefit platforms that drove the Olay skin care brand to a billion dollar business, more than doubling Olay's market share and fueling expansion into 15+ global markets. 

A founding member of Buckeye Engineering Women in Executive Leadership and a member of the COE External Advisory Council, she also served on the CBE Industrial Advisory Board.
 

Aisha Barry ('95 BS) - Distinguished Alumni Award for Career Achievement

Experienced strategic business leader and technical innovator Aisha Barry (’95 BS) was honored with the Distinguished Alumni Award for Career Achievement. Barry is President of Advanced Sterilization Products (ASP), a global leader in infection prevention solutions and a wholly owned operating company of Fortive Corporation (NYSE: FTV).

Previously, Barry was Vice President and General Manager of Philips' Patient Monitoring and before that, she served as Vice President and General Manager of Patient Management Software at Medtronic. In that role, she led the transformation of remote monitoring for patients with implanted cardiac devices towards an integrated digital health care platform. She also held leadership roles at John Deere & Company.
In 2019, Barry was named among the "2019 Most Influential Women in Corporate America" by Savoy Magazine. The prestigious list showcases a cross section of business leaders and executives representing a diverse range of industries with national and global focus.

A member of the Kaman Corporation Board of Directors and the CBE Industrial Advisory Board, Barry is also national vice chair of the Jeremiah Program, a nonprofit that helps families transform from poverty to prosperity.

Ah-Hyung (Alissa) Park ('05 PhD) - Distinguished Alumni Award for Academic Excellence

Academician and thought leader Ah-Hyung (Alissa) Park (’05 PhD) received the Distinguished Alumni Award for Academic Excellence. Dr. Park is the Lenfest Earth Institute Professor of Climate Change, director of the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy, and department chair of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University. She is considered a world leader on carbon dioxide emission control. With her strong fundamental and technical abilities and far-reaching vision, her work in sustainable energy and climate change is both important and timely. Her novel systems based on hybrid nanomaterials and natural minerals are creating new sustainable energy pathways that integrate carbon capture, utilization, storage, and sustainable disposal technologies.

Professor Park is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the American Chemical Society (ACS), and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). She has received many awards, including the U.S. C3E Research Award, the AIChE PSRI Lectureship Award, and the ACS ENFL Emerging Researcher Award, all in 2018. She received the NSF CAREER Award in 2009.

She is a member of the CBE Industrial Advisory Board.

2020 Awardees Linda Broadbelt ('89 BS) and Bill Dawson ('81 BS) - Academic Excellence and Career Achievement awards

Linda Broadbelt, Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor and Associate Dean for Engineering Research at Northwestern University, was recognized for winning the 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award for Academic Excellence. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, she is renowned for her kinetic modeling expertise.

Bill Dawson, co-founder and CEO of Nexceris LLC, was recognized for having won the 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award for Career Achievement. Driven by a vision of a better world, his clean-use energy company develops innovative sensor, power generation and catalyst solutions.

Category: Alumni