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Javelina Alumni Honor Distinguished Research Award Winner

KINGSVILLE (October 26, 2009) — The Javelina Alumni Association honored its 2009 Distinguished Research Award recipient Dr. Jianhong-Jennifer Ren, associate professor of environmental engineering, at the organization’s Distinguished Alumni Luncheon Saturday, Oct. 24.

This award is given to recognize faculty for outstanding achievement in research.  Each award carries with it a $1,000 stipend, funded by the Javelina Alumni Association. The Luncheon also honored Javelina Alumni Association Distinguished Alumni Randall A. Odom (’57), Dr. Demarious Keller Frey, DVM (’59), Rising Star Award recipient Howard A. Garig (’94) and Distinguished Teacher Dr. Steven D. Lukefahr.

“I am honored to receive this award, because it represents acknowledgement from past students of Texas A&M-Kingsville that my research activities are moving the university of the future toward meaningful and important research activities,” said Ren. 

“New university leadership, an active and supportive alumni association and other factors have combined to make A&M-Kingsville an exciting place to teach and conduct research.”

About Dr. Jianhong-Jennifer Ren

Ren has been with Texas A&M-Kingsville since September 2003. She has been published on fifteen different occasions and given more than 40 professional presentations nationally and internationally. Her research interests include contaminant transport, biological interactions and particle dynamics in water systems; watershed studies on ecological and eco-hydrologic research; and fundamental microscopic approaches of subsurface contaminant transport.

Among her honors, Ren was awarded $400,000 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program in 2005, which offers the NSF's most prestigious awards in support of the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. She received that award for her work in particle dynamics and contaminant transport in rivers and streams.

In 2008 and 2009, Ren was the principle investigator (PI) on a grant to fund the YESTexas Summer Engineering Camp. This program allowed area high school students the chance to take part in university-level engineering research projects. The event was funded by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the Texas Workforce Commission and the Frank H. Dotterweich College of Engineering.

Ren also served as Co-P.I. on the $5 million renewal grant for the College of Engineering’s Center of Research Excellence in Science and Technology-Research on Environmental Sustainability of Semi-Arid Coastal Areas (CREST-RESSACA), one of only two established CREST programs in the nation to receive renewed funding.

She holds a B.S. in environmental engineering from Beijing Polytechnic University, an M.S. in environmental and civil engineering from Drexel University and a Ph.D. in environmental and civil engineering from Northwestern University.