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September 25, 2008 1:31 PM

From D.C. to USC

David Westphal, the Washington editor for McClatchy Newspapers, has joined the USC Annenberg School for Communication as executive in residence, Dean Ernest J. Wilson III announced.

In addition to supervising McClatchy's Washington and foreign bureaus, he led the editorial operations of McClatchy Tribune Information Services, with more than 1,200 media clients worldwide.

Westphal began his newspaper career as editor of a small daily in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He then spent 17 years at the Des Moines Register, where his jobs ranged from sports editor to Washington bureau reporter to managing editor.

He joined McClatchy's Washington bureau in 1995, first as deputy bureau chief and then as bureau chief. In 2006, he supervised the merger of the McClatchy and Knight Ridder Washington bureaus.

Westphal is married to Geneva Overholser, the director of USC Annenberg's School of Journalism.

Little's Big Plan

Richard G. Little, director of the Keston Institute for Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy at the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development, has been elected to the National Academy of Construction and will be inducted at the group's annual meeting Oct. 10 in Bartlesville, Okla.

The National Academy of Construction is an organization made up of industry leaders whose present or past professional career, over a period of years, demonstrates outstanding contribution to the effectiveness of the engineering and construction industry.

Information, Please

Maja Mataric of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering is a new member of the National Science Foundation directorate for computer and information science and engineering advisory committee.

Getting Into the Flow

Herbert J. Meiselman, professor and vice chair of physiology and biophysics, has received the Poiseuille Medal from the International Society of Biorheology.

The award is given every three years to recognize an individual's continuous contributions to biorheology, a discipline that deals with the deformation and flow of matter of biological materials, including biopolymer solutions, blood and blood cells, bone, cell suspensions, gels, skin and tissue.

The award honors Meiselman's career in biorheology and clinical hemorheology - a related field that focuses on the behavior of blood and blood components - which spans a period of more than 45 years, including a doctoral program at MIT, postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology and service since 1972 as a faculty member at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Meiselman, who is president-elect of the International Society for Clinical Hemorheology, has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and edited three books.

Meiselman accepted the award and the gold Poiseuille Medal at the 13th International Congress on Biorheology held in July.

Faculty Fulbright

USC College international relations professor Mai'a Davis Cross has been selected as a Fulbright scholar grantee to the European Union Affairs Research Program.

Davis Cross will be interviewing European Union officials and policymakers in Brussels, Paris and London from January to June, 2009, and will be affiliated with the College of Europe in Bruges.

Earlier, during her Ph.D. studies at Princeton University, Davis Cross did research in Europe as a visiting fellow at Sciences Po in Paris.

She is a recent addition to the Trojan Family, having come from Colgate University this fall. Davis Cross currently is teaching a graduate level seminar in the new public diplomacy master's program.

Up and Away

Sina Golshany, an undergraduate in the USC Viterbi School's Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, has become the first AME student to place in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics aircraft design competition.

The institute's national competition, now in its third decade, encourages young engineers to develop innovative solutions to challenges faced by aerospace designers.

In 2006-07, the institute challenged students to design a light sport aircraft, given a rigorous series of requirements and design objectives. Golshany's design proposal took third place.

Golshany designed a single-engine aircraft, the Phoenix Flyer, which is capable of changing its propeller disk inclination, greatly improving the post-stall behavior of such an aircraft and increasing its safety.

Professor Ron Blackwelder was one of Golshany's advisers on the design project.

Hodge Podge

USC Viterbi School assistant professor Andrea Hodge has received a two-year, $175,000 BRIGE grant from the National Science Foundation to improve control of a sophisticated manufacturing process used to synthesize thin films of various materials.

BRIGE, an acronym for "Broadening Participation Research Initiation Grants in Engineering," is a new program initiated this year by the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Engineering.

Hodge came to the USC Viterbi School last year from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, where she was a materials scientist. She is a member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and a faculty member in the USC Women in Science and Engineering program.