Faculty honors

Jenny Davis, anthropology, has been appointed by Illinois Gov. Pritzker to serve on the Illinois State Museum Board.

David Cooper, Slavic languages and literatures, has been elected president of the Association of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, a nonprofit, non-political, scholarly organization, leading internationally in the advancement of knowledge about Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia, and Eastern Europe in regional and global context.

Deborah Leckband, chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been named a 2026 Fellow of the Biophysical Society by the Society’s Fellows Committee. This honor is presented to distinguished Society members who have demonstrated excellence in science and contributed to the expansion of the field of biophysics.

Bo Zhang, psychology and labor and employment relations, has received the Academy of Management Research Methods Division’s Lawrence R. James Early Career Award. This is considered one of the most prestigious awards for individuals in their early career stage doing methodological research in management.

Zhuo Wang, climate, meteorology, and atmospheric sciences, has been elected a fellow of the American Meteorological Society. Fellows are selected for outstanding contributions to the atmospheric or related oceanic or hydrologic sciences or their applications during a substantial period of years. 

Erik Nelson, molecular and integrative physiology, has received the 2025 Laureate Award from the Endocrine Society. The honor, given to 14 leading endocrinologists, is the most prestigious in the field. 

Matthew Winters,  political science, has been named the Leslie A. Watt Professorial Scholar.

Mariselle Meléndez , Spanish and Portuguese professor, has named the 2025  Frances O’Connell Endowed Faculty Scholar.

Kimberly Mack, English, has been named the 2025 Aaron and Laurel Clark Scholar. 

Soo Ah Kwon, Asian American studies, has been recognized as the 2025 Lynn M. Martin Professorial Scholar.

Jamie Jones, English; Rini Bhattacharya Mehta, comparative literature and religion; Mirelsie Velázquez,  Latina/Latino studies; and Roderick Wilson, history and East Asian languages and culture, have been named the 2025 Conrad Humanities Scholars.

Daniel Cooney, mathematics; Jeremiah Heller, mathematics; Wei Wei, actuarial sciences and risk management; Amanda Young, mathematics; and Ruoqing Zhu, statistics, have been named the 2025 Brad and Karen Smith Scholars.

Adrian Burgos, Jr., history, has been named the 2025 Norman P. Jones Professorial Scholar.

Marianne Alleyne, entomology; K. Decker French, astronomy;  Christopher Kempf, English; Alexa Kuenstler, chemical and biomolecular engineering; Rebecca Oh, English; and Gan Zhang, climate, meteorology, and atmospheric sciences, have been recognized as the Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors (LEAP) Scholars.

Alexa Kuenstler, chemical and biomolecular engineering, has received a 2025 School of Chemical Sciences Teaching Award. The award recognizes her exceptional educational efforts, from course development to in-class instruction. 

Kate Clancy, anthropology, has been awarded the 2025 APEX award of excellence for her article, “Biology is Not Binary” (2024).

Hong Yang, chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been named a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The fellowship is the highest professional award conferred by the society and recognizes his outstanding contributions to the chemical sciences.

Erik McDuffie, history and African American studies, has been awarded the Jon Gjerde Prize by the Midwestern History Association for his new book “The Second Battle for Africa."

Damien S. Gurionnent, Simon A. Rogers, and Diwakar Shukla, chemical and biomolecular engineering, have been named James W. Westwater professorial scholars. This award recognizes their unique excellence and research in their field.

Shiv Priyam Raghuraman, climate meteorology and atmospheric sciences, received the Paul Crutzen Publication Award for his paper in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics on using climate model simulations to show that the 2023 spike in global surface temperatures were primarily driven by natural phenomenon El Nino Southern Oscillation.

Nicholas E. Jackson, chemistry, has been named the 2025 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. This honor recognizes the research and teaching careers of young faculty and will aid in funding the Jackson lab which focuses on a chemically transferable coarse-grained electronic structure model for polymers. 

Travis Dixon, communication, has been recognized as the 2025 U of I Black Faculty and Professional Alliance Trailblazer. This award honors path-breaking accomplishments made by Black faculty and staff over the past year.

Janice Harrington, English, has received the 2025 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Poetry. The award rewards literature dedicated to deepening our understanding of race and diversity.

Stephan Link, chemistry, has been named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This award recognizes scientists and innovators nominated by their peers for their scientifically and socially distinguished accomplishment.

Charles E. Sing, chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been selected to receive the 2025 Owens Corning Early Career Award from the Materials Engineering and Sciences Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. This award recognizes outstanding independent contributions to the scientific, technological, educational, or service areas of materials science and engineering.

Rachelle Grossman (pictured), comparative and world literature, Amy Hassinger, English, Simi Kang Asian American studies, Daniel Nabil Maroun, French and Italian, and Mirelsie Velázquez, Latina/Latino studies, have been named Humanities Research Institute Fellows for the 2025-26 academic year.

Mikael Backlund, chemistry, has received the NSF CAREER Award for his research proposal exploring spectroscopy and quantum information. His proposal combines theory and experiments to determine the quantum information limits of single-molecule spectroscopy which could lead to advancements in the areas of health, defense, and energy.

Angad Mehta, chemistry, and Lisa Olshansky, chemistry, were awarded with Sloan Fellowships. The fellowships recognize awardees that are the very best of early-career science, embodying the creativity, ambition, and rigor that drive discovery forward.

Nicholas E. Jackson, chemistry, has been selected as a 2025 Cottrell Scholar by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement.

Catherine Murphy, chemistry, received the 2025 NANOSMAT Prize Award.  She will give a lecture at the 16th NANOSMAT Conference in Naples, Italy, this summer.

Janice Harrington, English, will be inducted into the 2025 Alabama Writers Hall of Fame in March 2025.

Prashant Jain, G.L. Clark Professor of Physical Chemistry, has been selected to receive the 2025 Craver Award by the Coblentz Society.

Nicholas Jackson, chemistry, has been selected to receive The Kavli Foundation Emerging Leader in Chemistry Award. He will deliver the Kavli Emerging Leader in Chemistry Lecture at the American Chemical Society Spring 2025 Meeting.

Renee L. Baillargeon, professor emeritus of psychology, will receive the 2025 Kurt-Koffka Medal from the Department of Psychology at the University of Giessen in Germany this July at an award ceremony in Germany.

Emily Van Duyn, communication, has been selected to participate in the 2024 Faculty Institute facilitated by the College Presidents for Civic Preparedness and the Institute for Citizens and Scholars.

Diwakar Shukla, chemical and biomolecular engineering has received the 2023-2024 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research. 

Theresa Schoetz, chemical and biomolecular engineering, has received the POLiS Award of Excellence for Female Researchers.

Stephen Nesbitt, professor and head of the Department of Climate, Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences, has been named a fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Erik Nelson and Lori Raetzman (pictured), molecular and integrative physiology, have been chosen to receive the Laureate Awards from the Endocrine Society, the top honors in the field.

Reuben May, the Florian Znaniecki Professorial Scholar and head of the Department of Sociology, has been selected for the 2024-2025 President’s Executive Leadership Program.

Ying Diao, chemical and biomolecular engineering, has received the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ 2024 Allan P. Colburn Award for Excellence in Publications by a Young Member of the Institute.

Eric Calderwood, comparative and world literature, and Bobby Smith II (pictured), African American studies, will receive the 2024 Humanities Research Institute Prize for Research in the Humanities, in the faculty category. 

Lisa Olshansky, chemistry, has been selected by the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation as a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar for 2024. She is one of 18 scholars named for the year and will receive an unrestricted research grant of $100,000.

Huimin Zhao, professor of chemical & biomolecular engineering, received the 2024 Charles D. Scott Award from the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology.   

Paul Kenis, director of the School of Chemical Sciences, has been named a Fellow of the International Society of Electrochemistry for his work in microfluidics and gas diffusion electrodes, and electrocatalytic CO2 reduction.

Both Kelly Findley, a teaching associate professor of Statistics, and Xun Yan (pictured), associate professor of Linguistics, received Provost’s Initiative on Teaching Advancement awards. These grants enable recipients to design, implement, and assess instructional and pedagogical innovation that has a high probability of enhancing education at Illinois. 

Ying Diao, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, received the 2024 Owens Corning Early Career Award from the Materials Engineering & Sciences Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Diao was cited for “fusing molecular assembly with surface science to reveal unconventional mechanisms of surface-induced nucleation, and creating innovative, scalable printing methods for nanomaterials manufacturing.” 

Emad Tajkhorshid, professor of biochemistry, is the winner of this year's Beckman Vision and Spirit Award, which recognizes an interdisciplinary, collaborative faculty member who shows the same spirit as our founder and alumnus, Arnold Beckman. 

Elizabeth Velásquez Estrada, Latina/Latino studies, has been appointed as a National Humanities Center Fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year. During the fellowship, she will participate in seminars, lectures, and conferences at the center and work on her book project “Intersectional Justice Denied: Warring Masculinity, Violence, and Peacemaking in Post-Accords El Salvador.”

Ariana Traill, professor of classics, has received the King Broadrick-Allen Award from the Campus Honors Program in recognition of outstanding teaching of Chancellor’s Scholars and distinguished service to the university’s educational mission.