The International Society of Automation announced Aug. 21 its four latest ISA Fellows and 14 Celebrating Excellence award recipients. The recognitions honor the outstanding efforts of ISA members in supporting and advancing the society and the automation community. The ISA's Society Admissions committee was chaired by Bridget Fitzpatrick, while the Honors and Awards committee was chaired by Brian Curtis.
2020 ISA Fellows
The esteemed Fellow member grade is one of ISA's highest honors. To earn this distinction, a senior member must possess outstanding and acknowledged engineering or scientific attainments, must receive peer evaluations leading to recommendation for election by the Society Admissions Committee, and must be elected by a majority vote of ISA's Executive Board. In ISA’s 75-year history, 495 ISA Fellows have been elected.
ISA Fellows for 2020 are:
- Donald Dunn of Waldemar S. Nelson & Co. in Highlands, Texas, for the education and standardization of terminology, requirements and guidance for the process industry-wide safety area of alarm management;
- David Rahn of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Rockville, Md., for developing and implementing of new methodology and acceptance criteria to establish the reliability of critical safety equipment of nuclear power plants;
- John Sorge, retired, of Birmingham, Ala., for his leading, advocating, sponsoring, and technically contributing to activities, projects, and organizations to advance instrumentation and control research on and application of new power-generation technologies; and
- Richard Van Fleet of Andritz Inc. in Cumming, Ga., for providing subject matter expertise and technical support relating to sensor development and implementation of advanced process control and sustained process optimization of pulping and bleaching processes.
Celebrating Excellence winners
Meanwhile, the Celebrating Excellence awards stimulate, enhance, encourage, acknowledge and reward outstanding contributions to ISA and the automation profession by providing an avenue for individuals to compete for recognition within established categories. The Honors and Awards Committee receives award nominations each year, reviews candidate qualifications, and recommends honorees for approval by the ISA Executive Board honorees for approval. This year's winners are:
- Excellence in technical innovation (endowed by Honeywell UOP) to Soliman Almadi of Saudi Aramco in Dhahran, Eastern Saudi Arabia.
- Excellence in technical presentation to Abdulkadar Susnerwala of Air Liquide in Houston.
- Excellence in education to Himanshu Patel of the Institute of Technology at Nirma University in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.
- Mentoring excellence to Greg McMillan of Emerson in Austin, Texas.
- Excellence in enduring service to Catherine Andrews of Hile Controls of Alabama in Pelham, Ala.; James Haw of La Porte, Texas; Ian Verhappen of Industrial Automation Networks in Calgary, Alberta, Canada; and Clifford Wuertz of Cypress, Texas.
- Division excellence to ISA's Analysis Division.
- Division leader excellence to Ed Naranjo of Honeywell's process measurement and control division in Eagan, Minn.
- Section excellence to ISA's Bangalore section in Karnataka, India.
- Section leader excellence to Dattatray Sawant of the ISA's Maharashtra section in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
- Standards excellence to Donald Dunn of Waldemar S. Nelson & Co. in Highlands, Texas.
- Volunteer leader of the year to Cheri Haarmeyer of Pearland, Texas.
