Accolades is an occasional News Center feature that highlights recent accomplishments of UT Dallas faculty and students. To submit items for consideration, contact your school’s communication manager.

Professor Receives Two Honors for Research Contributions

Dr. Daniel A. Griffith

Dr. Daniel A. Griffith

Dr. Daniel A. Griffith, Ashbel Smith Professor of geospatial information sciences, has received two new honors that recognize him for profoundly influencing how researchers analyze spatial data.

The Royal Society of Canada has elected Griffith as a foreign fellow — that nation’s highest honor for scholars in the arts, humanities and sciences. Griffith was cited for his published works that have changed how the spatial aspects of the relationship between organisms, including humans, and their environment is analyzed. Griffith, the only foreign fellow elected this year, will be inducted Friday, Nov. 24, at a ceremony in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

In a separate honor, the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) presented Griffith with a 2017 Research Award in May for his contributions including the development of eigenvector spatial filtering (ESF), a mathematical modeling methodology widely used to analyze spatial data. ESF has been adopted in multiple disciplines including ecology, economics, epidemiology, geography, spatial crime analysis, statistics and transportation. The UCGIS is a nonprofit scientific and educational organization established to advance research in geographic information science, expand and strengthen GIS education, and advocate policies for the promotion of ethical use of and access to geographic information and technologies.

“I feel really honored to be selected for these awards,” Griffith said. “It’s really nice to receive recognition that what you’re doing is making a contribution.”

In 2015, Griffith was elected a fellow of the American Statistical Association, the only geographer to date who has achieved that honor.

“All of the recognitions and honors Dr. Griffith has received over the course of his distinguished career make it obvious that he is absolutely a world-class researcher at the very top of his field,” said Dr. Denis Dean, dean of the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences. “We are very fortunate to have someone of his caliber on our faculty.”

Engineering Professor Honored for Informal Education Work

Dr. Gil Sik Lee

Dr. Gil Sik Lee

Dr. Gil Sik Lee, an electrical engineering professor in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, was chosen for an IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) Meritorious Achievement Award in Informal Education, which he will receive at the IEEE Meeting Series in Phoenix in November.

Lee is the founder and CEO of IntelliChoice, a nonprofit tutoring program working in 13 lower-income neighborhoods in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He received a Community Hero Award from Tech Titans for this work in 2015.

The IEEE EAB recognized Lee for significant contributions to preparing underserved students to succeed in college education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Many of the program’s volunteer tutors are UT Dallas faculty, staff and students.

“I like to say that math equals success squared," said Lee, whose impoverished childhood in Korea gave him perspective on the path out of poverty. “We strongly believe that a solid foundation in mathematics will lead to successful academic and professional careers for young disadvantaged students.”