Tim Usher, professor of physics at Cal State San Bernardino, has been selected as the university’s 2015-2016 Outstanding Scholarship, Research, and Creative Activities Award winner
Presented during CSUSB’s Meeting of the Minds student research symposium on May 19, the award goes to one CSUSB faculty member every two years and is based on a professor’s sustained research efforts in their field.
After calling him up to the stage at the symposium, CSUSB President Tomás Morales said Usher “stood out from this year’s candidates.” His achievements in research and scholarship “over his distinguished career at CSUSB, as well as his direct mentorship of countless CSUSB and other students” made Usher a clear choice.
“Receiving this award is a great honor,” Usher said. “It is also a great honor and privilege to work with outstanding students and excellent faculty at CSUSB, nationally, and internationally.”
For Usher, his body of work spans 26 years at CSUSB.
Under his belt are more than 20 peer-reviewed publications, 60 poster presentations at regional, national, and international conferences, and 30 invited talks based on his research in the area of experimental materials science. He also has secured many grants from prestigious agencies, including as NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Transportation, the California Space Grant Consortium and the National Science Foundation.
And right now, he’s principal investigator for the largest research grant in the sciences ever awarded at CSUSB – the CREST grant, which boasts six faculty investigators, as well as collaborations with the University of Nebraska and the University of Buffalo, totaling more than $5 million. The CREST grant supports dozens of research students each year at CSUSB, Nebraska, University of Buffalo and NASA, as well as early research experiences for students from the College of the Desert, Victor Valley College, and even high school students through Upward Bound.
In 2008-2009, Usher used a coveted Fulbright Scholarship he’d been awarded to go to University College Dublin in Ireland, and he served as a Visiting Professor at North Carolina State University’s Materials Research Center from 1999-2000.
Usher, along with physics colleague Paul Dixon, was one of the co-inventors of the first intellectual properties commercially licensed by CSUSB. The system, called NI-ELVIS, represents the first of its kind for teaching electronics and is now used in electronics education throughout the world.
Usher also has worked closely with NASA’s Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif.
“CSUSB researchers are developing new advanced functional materials which hold great promise as enabling technologies for new aeronautical advances,” said Albion Bowers, the chief scientist at NASA Armstrong. “However, NASA Armstrong and CSUSB’s goals are most closely aligned when it comes to inspiring and fostering the next generation of scientists and engineers, including students from traditionally underrepresented groups.”
Visit the Center for Advanced Functional Materials website for more information on its research projects.
Set in the foothills of the beautiful San Bernardino Mountains, CSUSB is a preeminent center of intellectual and cultural activity in inland Southern California. Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2015-2016, CSUSB serves more than 20,000 students each year and graduates about 4,000 students annually.
For more information about Cal State San Bernardino, contact the university’s Office of Strategic Communication at (909) 537-5007 and visit news.csusb.edu