Faculty honors

Stephen Marshak, professor of geology and director of the School of Earth, Society, and Environment, received the Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. He thrives by engaging students in the excitement and mystery of studying Earth. Whether students are assigned to sketch some of the visible geology, traverse rocks, or follow dry creek beds, they have come to appreciate Marshak’s dedication to anchoring conceptual knowledge to experiences inside and outside the classroom.

Eric Snodgrass, an instructor in atmospheric sciences, received the Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. He has “revolutionized” online delivery of large-enrollment courses, and his work has served as a model for instruction across campus. Snodgrass’ innovations in the classroom include the use of multimedia resources, the incorporation of real-world challenge problems and online discussion boards.

Bruce C. Berndt, a professor of mathematics, received the Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring. Berndt has mentored many graduate students throughout his career. The 29 students who have earned their degrees under his direction have taken positions at research institutions around the world. He regularly collaborates with former students on publications and projects, an uncommon practice in the field.

Alex Shakar, professor of English, was named a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction for Luminarium. Luminarium focuses on the roles of technology and spirituality in shaping people’s reality.

Clare Crowston, professor of history, was chosen as a Collaborative Research Fellow by the American Council of Learned Societies. Crowston’s work focuses on labor history and the history of women and gender. The fellowship program brings together 15 scholars from different institutions, disciplines, and countries whose varied perspectives will yield advances in research.

Ed Diener, the Joseph R. Smiley Distinguished Professor of Psychology, was named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the oldest honorary societies in the nation whose members also included Albert Einstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Benjamin Franklin. Diener was selected for his pioneering contributions to psychological science. Much of his career has been devoted to measuring well-being and understanding the cultural, personality, and economic factors that influence it.

Sydney Cameron, professor of entomology, has been selected for a Fulbright Specialists project in environmental science at the National University of Comahue in Argentina. Cameron will spend three weeks in Argentina, giving undergraduate and graduate lectures and hands-on workshops for graduate students in the genetics curriculum on cutting-edge research in molecular population genetics. She will also give a keynote presentation on South American bumble bee conservation.

Janice M. Juraska, professor of psychology, was named president-elect of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology. The society encourages research on the development of behavior in all organisms, including man, with special attention to the effects of biological factors operating at any level of organization.

Ruth Nicole Brown, professor of gender and women’s studies, received a 2012 Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement. This award recognizes faculty who have consistently applied their knowledge and expertise to issues of societal importance for the public good. Brown is the founder and co-organizer of the Saving Our Lives Hear Our Truth program, an after-school program that uses art-based activities to encourage self- and collective expression.

Christian Sandvig, professor of communication, received a 2012 Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement. This award recognizes faculty who have consistently applied their knowledge and expertise to issues of societal importance for the public good. Sandvig focuses his public engagement work on understanding the development of new communication infrastructures and their implications on public policy. He has created a long-term collaboration with Tribal Digital Village, an innovative philanthropic and government project to provide high-speed solar-powered Internet to Native lands in California.

Ping Ma, associate professor of statistics, won the Canadian Journal of Statistics 2011 Best Paper Award for a paper that he coauthored, titled “Nonparametric Regression with Cross-Classified Responses.” Ma’s research focuses on bioinformatics, functional data analysis, and geophysics.

Mara Wade, professor of Germanic languages and literatures, received a three-month fellowship as Senior Fellow des Landes Niedersachsen for research at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, the leading European research center for literatures and culture before 1800.

Ed Diener, professor of psychology, won the 2012 American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. Awardees are chosen for their lifetime achievement in scholarship and research, having made distinguished theoretical or empirical contributions to basic research in psychology.

Lisa Lucero, professor of anthropology, was appointed to the American Anthropological Association’s new Task Force on Climate Change. The task force was created to bring anthropology’s contributions to issues of environmental concern into the spotlight. Lucero will promote and develop anthropological contributions to climate change-related issues with eight other members of the task force.

Neal Dalal, assistant professor of astronomy, has been awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship, which is given to early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as the next generation of scientific leaders. Dalal’s research investigates some of the most fundamental problems in cosmology. His recent work has focused on structures called dark matter halos, which are objects that harbor all of the stars and galaxies observed in the universe.

Sheng Zhong, an assistant professor in the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, has been awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship, which is given to early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as the next generation of scientific leaders. Zhong researches causal relationships between gene regulation, cell differentiation, and cancer. His lab pioneered in systems biology modeling, stem-cell engineering, and single-cell technologies. Zhong is an associate professor of bioengineering, biophysics, and neuroscience. He is also affiliated with the Departments of Computer Science, Statistics, and Cell and Developmental Biology.

Vera Hur, assistant professor of mathematics, has been awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship, which is given to early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as the next generation of scientific leaders. Hur’s research focuses on the analysis of nonlinear partial differential equations which arises in physical contexts. In particular, she is interested in mathematical aspects of surface water waves and related moving boundary problems.

Clare Crowston, professor of history, has been awarded an ACLS Collaborative Research Fellowship to support her project, Learning How: Apprenticeship in France, 1675-1830, for 24 months beginning July 2012.

Craig Koslofsky, professor of history, was named the winner of this year’s Longman-History Today Book of the Year Award for his book Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe. The award goes to the best first or second history book, as determined by a panel of judges. The judges described the book as “methodologically bold and brilliantly original,” according to History Today.

Kara D. Federmeier, professor of psychology, has been elected a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. Fellow status is awarded to APS members who have made sustained outstanding contributions to the science of psychology in the areas of research, teaching, service, and/or application.

John E. Hummel, professor of psychology, has been elected a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. Fellow status is awarded to APS members who have made sustained outstanding contributions to the science of psychology in the areas of research, teaching, service, and/or application.

Daniel J. Simons, professor of psychology, has been elected a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. Fellow status is awarded to APS members who have made sustained outstanding contributions to the science of psychology in the areas of research, teaching, service, and/or application.

Wilfred van der Donk, the Richard E. Heckert Endowed Chair in Chemistry, has been elected a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Van der Donk was recognized for pioneering contributions to the discovery of natural products and the elaboration of their biosynthesis.

M. Christina White, professor of chemistry, has been elected a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. White was honored for discoveries of novel, highly useful catalytic methods for oxidative functionalization of aliphatic and allylic C-H bonds and delineation of predictable rules for reaction selectivities.

James Whitfield, professor of entomology, has been elected a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Whitfield was chosen for groundbreaking contributions toward understanding the evolution, diversification, and classification of the hyperdiverse parasitic Hymenoptera and their mutualistic polydnaviruses.

Ronald P. Toby, professor of East Asian languages and cultures and history, received the 2011 National Institutes for the Humanities Prize in Japanese Studies for outstanding contributions to Japanese studies by a foreign scholar. Toby is recognized for his research in the history of early modern Japanese foreign relations and for his accomplishments in the advancement and promotion of Japanese studies abroad.

Chris Fennell, associate professor of anthropology, has been elected to the board of directors of the Society for Historical Archaeology for a term of three years staring January 2012. He is also the founding editor of the new peer-review Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage.

Ellen Moodie, professor of anthropology, received the Ruth Benedict Global Citizenship Award for the Center for a Public Anthropology. This award recognizes Moodie’s participation in the center's Community Action Online Project as well as other public outreach activities.

Alex Yong, assistant professor of mathematics, has won (with his co-author Hugh Thomas) the Canadian Math Society’s G. de B. Robinson award for the best paper in the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin in 2009 and 2010. Their paper was titled “Multiplicity-Free Schubert Calculus.”

Marianne Kalinke, emeritus professor of Germanic languages and literatures, will receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Iceland in December for her productive research and publications on medieval Icelandic literature, which has furthered and stimulated research on older Icelandic literature, and for having supported international relations at the University of Iceland in the field of medieval studies.

Leslie Reagan, professor of history, has won the 2011 Joan Kelly Prize for her book, Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America (University of California Press, 2010). Established in 1984, this prize is awarded annually for the book in women’s history and/or feminist theory that best reflects the high intellectual and scholarly ideals exemplified by the life and work of Joan Kelly (1928-82).

Charles Schroeder, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been named a Packard Fellow in science and engineering for his work with fluorescent probes for ultra-high-resolution imaging. The fellowship from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation includes an unrestricted five-year, $875,000 award to support creative research. Schroeder’s award will fund the use of the new probes to study retroviruses and bacterial gene expression.

Steven C. Huber, professor of plant biology, was elected the president of the American Society of Plant Biologists for 2012. Huber’s research focuses on the role of protein phosphorylation in enzyme regulation.

Hugh M. Robertson, professor of entomology, was honored with a Certificate of Distinction by the Council of the International Congress of Entomology for his contributions to the field. Robertson is known for his research on insect genetics and for his role in insect genome projects.

Jonathan V. Sweedler, professor of chemistry, was appointed the editor-in-chief of Analytical Chemistry, a journal published by the American Chemical Society.

James B. Whitfield, professor of entomology, was honored with the Thomas Say Award from the Entomological Foundation. This award recognizes significant and outstanding work in the fields of insect systematics, morphology, or evolution. Whitfield’s research focuses on the systematics and ecology of parasitoid wasps.

David Irwin, professor of psychology, has won a 2011 Best Article Award from the Psychonomic Society. His article, “Where Does Attention Go When You Blink?” was published in Attention, Perception and Psychophysics, the largest of the psychonomic journals.

Youness Lamzouri, professor of mathematics, was honored with the 2011 Dissertation Prize by the Canadian Mathematical Society. This annual award recognizes extraordinary performance by a doctoral student. Lamzouri will accept this award at the society’s winter meeting held in Toronto.

Paul J. Kenis, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, is one of six faculty members recognized as University Scholars. An expert in the field of microfluidics, his research program is focused on the development of novel microfluidic tools for applications in energy and health.

Benjamin J. McCall, professor of chemistry, is one of six faculty members recognized as University Scholars. McCall is active in a rapidly growing research area, astrochemistry. His research at the interface of astronomy and chemistry includes three major areas: observational molecular astronomy, chemistry of fundamental reactive ion species, and laboratory detection of molecules important in interstellar chemistry.

James M. Slauch, professor of microbiology, is one of six faculty members recognized as University Scholars. Slauch is internationally recognized for his work on Salmonella virulence, a major cause of food-borne illness. His research focuses on the interplay between the human host and bacterium in disease.

Lillian Hoddeson, professor emeritus of history, is the winner of the 2012 Abraham Pais Prize for the History of Physics. This prize is awarded by the American Physical Society for outstanding scholarly achievements in the history of physics. She is being honored for her contributions to writing the history of 20th-century physics and her studies of American research laboratories, specifically Bell Labs, Los Alamos, and Fermilab, and her biography of John Bardeen. Hoddeson will be honored and will give a lecture at the April 2012 annual meeting of the society in Atlanta.

Diane Koenker, professor of history, had been elected vice president/president elect of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

Douglas A. Mitchell, professor of chemistry, has been named a recipient of the 2011 National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award. This award recognizes bold ideas from some of the nation's most promising new scientists. The $1.5 million award, given over a period of five years, supports young investigators who have proposed exceptionally creative research ideas that have the potential to produce important medical advances. Mitchell uses chemical methods to study the mechanisms that contribute to bacterial virulence and antibiotic resistance.

Harry C. Triandis, professor emeritus of psychology, won a Career Contribution Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. This award is given to a scholar who has made major theoretical and/or empirical contributions to social psychology and/or personality psychology or to bridging these two areas.

Jonathan Sweedler, professor of chemistry, was elected a fellow of the American Chemical Society. This award is given for outstanding accomplishments in chemistry and contributions to the American Chemical Society. Sweedler, who holds the James R. Eiszner Family Chair in Chemistry, is a bioanalytical chemist, with a focus on developing new methods to study the distribution and dynamic release of neurotransmitters and neuropeptides from individual neurons.

James Morrissey, professor of biochemistry, was recently awarded the Biennial Investigator Recognition Award for Contributions to Haemostasis by the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis. Morrissey was recognized for his distinguished record as a teacher and researcher.

Ed Seebauer, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, was recently elected a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the organization’s highest grade of membership.

Thom Dunning, professor of chemistry, was elected a fellow of the American Chemical Society. This award is given for outstanding accomplishments in chemistry and contributions to the American Chemical Society. Dunning directs the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and holds the Distinguished Chair for Research Excellence in Chemistry. His research focuses on the development of techniques for the accurate solution of the electronic Schrödinger equation and on new computational approaches to enhance scientists’ understanding of, and ability to predict, the structure, energetics, and reactivity of molecules.

Catherine Murphy, the Peter C. and Gretchen Miller Markunas Professor of Chemistry, was elected a fellow of the American Chemical Society. This award is given for outstanding accomplishments in chemistry and contributions to the American Chemical Society. Murphy’s research focuses on the overlapping fields of materials chemistry, inorganic chemistry, biophysics and nanotechnology.