ITHACA, N.Y. -- Seven Cornell University academics have received national and international recognition for their work in scientific research. Several of the awards are among the most prestigious in their fields.

Scholars who have received awards recently include Kevin Kornegay, electrical and computer engineering; Philip Liu and Jery Stedinger, civil and environmental engineering; Jerrold Meinwald, chemistry; Aaron Marcus, Weill Cornell Medical College; Fred W. McLafferty, chemistry and chemical biology; and Lang Tong, electrical and computer engineering.

• Kevin Kornegay, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, has won the 2004 Janice Lumpkin Educator of the Year Award from the National Society of Black Engineers;
• Philip Liu, professor of civil and environmental engineering, has won the International Coastal Engineering Award and the best paper award from Taiwan's Chinese Society of Mechanics;
• Aaron Marcus of Weill Cornell Medical College, has won the 2004 National Institutes of Health Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award, which carries a $2.8 million research grant;
• Fred W. McLafferty, the Peter J.W. Debye Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Emeritus, has been awarded the Lavoisier Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the French Chemical Society;
• Jerrold Meinwald, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Chemistry, has won the American Chemical Society's $25,000 Roger Adams Award in Organic Chemistry, a major international prize;
• Jery Stedinger, professor of civil and environmental engineering, has won the $133,000 Saudi Arabian Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water;
• Lang Tong, professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been made a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), an honor bestowed annually on only one-tenth of one percent of IEEE members.

Kornegay's award from the National Society of Black Engineers, the premier organization serving African Americans in engineering and technology, recognizes a faculty member with demonstrated commitment to advancing education in engineering, science and mathematics. He is director of the Cornell Broadband Communications Research Laboratory, and his research focuses on the design of integrated circuits that operate at radio and millimeter wave frequencies for broadband wired, wireless and optical communications systems, such as high-speed wireless local area networks. He was named one of the "50 Most Important Blacks in Research Science for 2004," received the Cornell Provost's 2004 Award for Distinguished Scholarship and was named Black Engineer of the Year in 2001. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1998.

Liu was awarded the International Coastal Engineering Award "in recognition of his outstanding achievements and contribution to the advancement of coastal engineering through research, education, engineering practice and professional leadership." Liu also is being honored by the Taiwan society for his paper "Oscillatory Flows Over a Permeable Wav Boundary," co-authored with his former Ph.D. student, S.-C. Hsiao. Liu, who joined the Cornell faculty in 1974, studies fluid mechanics in the environment with a focus on ocean-wave dynamics. His research topics range from tsunami generation, propagation and run up, to breaking-wave-generated current and sediment transport in coastal zones.

Marcus' research grant recognizes his nearly 50 years of pioneering biomedical research in hematology and vascular biology. The grant will provide long-term support for the development of a new treatment for occlusive vascular diseases, such as stroke, coronary artery disease and peripheral vascular disease. Marcus is chief of hematology-oncology and director of the Thrombosis Research Lab at the VANY Harbor Healthcare System, professor of medicine and professor of medicine in pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, and attending physician at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

McLafferty, an expert in gaseous ion chemistry, pioneered the development of analytical chemistry techniques widely in use today, including gas and liquid chromatography combined with mass spectrometry. He also was among the first in his field to apply computers to scientific instruments for data acquisition, reduction and interpretation. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1968. The Lavoisier Medal is named for Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794), known as the father of modern chemistry.

Meinwald is the first Cornellian to win the Roger Adams Award in Organic Chemistry. The prize was established in 1959 by Organic Syntheses Inc. and Organic Reactions Inc., and it continues to be sponsored by the two companies, as well as the Division of Organic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society. The award was established to "recognize and encourage outstanding contributions to research in organic chemistry defined in its broadest sense." Ten of the 23 previous recipients of the award are Nobel laureates. Much of Meinwald's research focuses on elucidating the chemistry of insect and plant defense and communication mechanisms. He has been a member of the Cornell faculty since 1952.

Stedinger studies risk analysis, water resource systems management and stochastic hydrology and is the author of two textbooks and more than 100 professional papers. The Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz prize was established in 2002 to recognize outstanding research in various areas of water research. Stedinger previously won the Surface Water Prize for his research on effective flood control and flood frequency analysis methods. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1977.

Tong was elected a fellow of the IEEE for his "contributions to statistical signal processing for communications and wireless networks." Being elected an IEEE fellow follows a rigorous evaluation procedure and is one of the institute's highest honors. Tong's research is in the general area of statistical signal processing, communication systems and networks, and information theory. His group currently is investigating the roles of signal processing in wireless systems and networks with specific applications in cellular and ad hoc networks, detection and estimation in sensor networks, broadcast HDTV, wireless LAN, cable and DSL systems. Tong will be a plenary speaker at the IEEE's signal processing society's annual conference in March 2005. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1998.