iCON Awards Previous Recipients
2010 Award Recipients
iCON Knowledge Builder Award (Grades 6-12):
Dr. Elizabeth Babcock Ph.D., The Field Museum
Elizabeth C. Babcock, Ph.D., is Vice President of Education and Library Collections at the Field Museum. Dr. Babcock is responsible for the development and implementation of education programs, outreach initiatives and digital programming to over 800,000 adults, families, teachers and students each year. The focus of her work is to improve the public’s understanding of natural history and to serve diverse audiences by leveraging the Museum’s exhibitions, collections and scientific research. Dr. Babcock’s work in the library focuses on increasing the public’s access to and utilization of the Museum’s rare book collection, photo and institutional archives and general collection of over 300,000 items.Prior to assuming her current role, Dr. Babcock served as Director of Education and Library Collections, Teacher and Student Programs Director, and Manager of Teacher and Student Programs at The Field Museum. Before joining the Museum in 2002, Dr. Babcock worked in the environmental field as a consultant and program developer, designing community outreach strategies. She worked for several years in the corporate sector, managing user experience research and design projects in the financial, consumer products and technology industries. She has also worked as a program evaluator and visitor studies researcher for museums, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations.
Dr. Babcock has taught K-12, undergraduate, graduate and adult students in a range of content areas, including music for special needs students, environmental anthropology, sustainable development, introductory anthropology and adult literacy.
iCON Innovator Award (University Level):
Brenda Russell Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago
Brenda Russell, Ph.D., is a Professor of Physiology, Biophysics, Bioengineering and Medicine, and Executive Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Russell’s scientific training, background, experience and productivity encompass a range of disciplines and forge linkages in the continuum between quantitative biology, bioengineering and physiology. Her current NIH support funds two collaborative projects, one on heart failure for regulation of protein synthesis and remodeling of cell shape, and the other for tissue engineering with development of a novel cell culture system using bioengineering and surface chemistry modification. Many of her studies have been done in close collaboration with clinicians (heart failure, muscular dystrophies and urinary incontinence).
Dr. Russell is former editor of The American Journal of Physiology: Cell and of Cell & Tissue Research and was an editorial board member of many journals, including Circulation Research and The Journal of Applied Physiology. She has written reviews, book chapters and well over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Some of her material is now incorporated into textbooks—including the widely used Gray’s Anatomy and Berne and Levy’s Physiology.Major research often requires collaboration and interdisciplinary resources. Dr. Russell has chaired several cross-disciplinary task forces at UIC including regenerative medicine with stem cells (clinical, basic biomedical and bioengineering), environmental science and policy (public health, political science, pollution and geology), tobacco-related research (prevention psychology, basic biomedical, cancer and clinical treatment), bioinformatics (computer science, genomics, health informatics and biotech entrepreneurs) and structural biology (proteomics, crystallography and molecular biology). She is the UIC Leader for the Chicago Biomedical Consortium fostering interactions with the University of Chicago and Northwestern University to enable and encourage interdisciplinary research that is beyond the range of a single institution and thereby to promote educational, health and commercial developments that will benefit the Chicago community at large.
2009 Award Recipients
iCON Knowledge Builder Award (Grades 6-12):
Terry Meyer, Red Bud High School
After attending seminars, Terry began implementing some small labs into his advanced biology and general biology classes. As Terry worked to become more familiar with the advancements in biotechnology, the labs conducted in the classrooms became larger and more skilled. Terry has become a professional development leader in biotech in the Southern Illinois Region. One key contribution came when he was selected into the Teacher-Leader program conducted by the Biotechnology Institute. Through the Teacher-Leader Program he gained valuable developmental hands-on training with professional biotech educators and gained an increased desire to provide professional development programs to fellow educators in the surrounding area. Terry was honored by his selection to the Teacher-Leader Program conducted by the Biotechnology Institute. He was also awarded a $10,000 grant for classroom biotech supplies funded by the generosity of Baxter International, Inc, while attending the Teacher-Leader Program in Boston, Massachusetts. Terry was professionally recognized as an outstanding teacher when he was selected as the Red Bud CUSD #132 Teacher of the Year for 2008. Terry was recognized as an outstanding teacher when he was selected to participate in the HEART Gk-12 Program funded by the National Science Foundation and implemented through the ecology department at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
iCON Innovator Award (University Level):
Thomas J. Meade, Northwestern University
Dr. Meade is The Eileen M. Foell Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Physiology and Radiology at Northwestern University. His revolutionary research focuses on coordination chemistry and its application in bioinorganic problems that include biological molecular imaging, electron transfer processes and the development of electronic biosensors for the detection of DNA and proteins. Dr. Meade joined Northwestern University in 2002 and is the only professor to have four different faculty department appointments. Dr. Meade is a serial entrepreneur with a proven track record. He has founded successful start-up companies based on his research at Caltech and Northwestern: Clinical Micro Sensors (CMS), which is involved in the electrochemical detection of nucleic acids, and Metaprobe (now Alerion Biomedical), which focuses on in vivo biochemically activated magnetic resonance contrast agents. CMS was sold to Motorola in 2000 for more than $300 million. Dr. Meade is currently the inventor of more than 70 patents and patent applications.
Previous honors, awards or recognition he has received: Miller Professor, University of California Berkeley (2009), Northwestern University Excellence in Teaching Award (2008), Beaumont Award, Wayne County Medical Society (2007), Eileen M. Foell Chair in Cancer Research, Northwestern University (2005), Founder, Ohmx Inc., Evanston IL (2005), Founder, PreDx Corp., Evanston IL (2005), Elected President – Society of Molecular Imaging – Membership >1,000 (2004), FMC Award, Princeton University (2004), Elkin Distinguished Investigators Cancer Lecturer, Emory University (2003), Neuroscience Award Lecture, Society for Neuro-Oncology (November 2002), National Academy of Engineering Lecturer, Cleveland OH (2000), Founder, Imaging in 2020 conference (1999-2009).
2008 Award Recipients
iCON Knowledge Builder Award (Grades 6-12):
Hortense Brice, Lindblom Math & Science Academy
Hortense has a long and rich history in the Chicago Public School System. She worked at Whitney Young for 17 years before leaving to start the science program at King College Prep. She is currently bringing her expertise to Lindblom Math & Science Academy as its Science Department Chair. She received her bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University, and holds a master’s from University of Illinois at Chicago in Curriculum and Instruction as well as a Masters from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Science Education.
iCON Innovator Award (University Level):
Daphne Preuss, Chromatin Inc.
Daphne Preuss, Ph.D., (Chief Executive Officer) is co-founder of Chromatin, Inc., and an inventor of Chromatin’s patented mini-chromosome technology. Dr. Preuss received her doctorate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and performed postdoctoral work at Stanford University. She is on leave of absence from the University of Chicago where she is the Albert D. Lasker Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology. She also serves on the Board of Governors at Argonne National Laboratory, was listed by Discover magazine as one of 20 outstanding young American scientists in 2000, and named to Chicago Crain’s Business Review’s "40 under 40" list of promising Chicago citizens in 2001. She is a David and Lucile Packard Fellow, a Searle Scholar and a Lifetime National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences.
2007 Award Recipients
iCON Knowledge Builder Award (Grades 6-12):
Myrna Alvarez, Dunbar Vocational Career Academy
Myrna is currently implementing a variety of model biotechnology lessons as part of the Chicago High School Transformation Project (funded by the Gates Foundation). Without exception, her lessons have engaged students and improved their science achievement and interest in biomedical-oriented careers.
She is a national leader in Operation Biotechnology, teacher leaders. In this role she has provided mentoring and professional development to all her science colleagues in the area of biotechnology. In addition, she has planned and delivered the professional development activities provided to all science teachers in 11 Chicago high schools, as part of Illinois Institute of Technology’s High School Transformation Project. She will also be training an additional 25 teachers at the national level as part of our FIPSE grant.
iCON Innovator Award (University Level):
Chad A. Mirkin, Northwestern University
Dr. Mirkin is the Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology, the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Medicine and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering.
Professor Mirkin is a chemist and a world-renowned nanoscience expert, who is known for his development of nanoparticle-based biodetection schemes, the invention of Dip-Pen Nanolithography and contributions to supramolecular chemistry. He is author of over 290 manuscripts and over 325 patents (60 issued). He is the founder of two companies, Nanosphere and NanoInk, which are commercializing nanotechnology applications in the life science and semiconductor industries. At present, he is listed as one of the top 10 most-cited chemists in the world and is the top most-cited nanomedicine researcher in the world.