Spring 2025 Accolades

Awards

Congratulations to Associate Professor Hiromi Mizuno (History), whose article "Okinawa Agriculture and the Sterile Insect Technology" received the 2024 Vernon Carstensen Memorial Award for the best article published in the journal Agricultural History (Nov 2024) from the Agricultural History Society.

Associate Professor Alice Lovejoy (Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature) was awarded the Artis Bohemiae Amicis Medal by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. This is a state award given for long-term, significant contributions to Czech culture.

Professor Kathleen Collins (Political Science) has received the Fulbright Global Scholar Award (2025–26), the most competitive program awarded by the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, and the College of Liberal Arts Social Science Research Grant (2025–27). The awards support her research on pathways of postcommunist military reform.

Associate Dean for Arts and Humanities and Associate Professor Tracey Deutch (History) received the 2025 President's Award for Outstanding Service. The University of Minnesota President's Award for Outstanding Service was established in 1997 to recognize faculty and staff (current or retired) who have provided exceptional service to the University, its schools, colleges, departments, and service units.

Awards

Congratulations to two CLA instructors whose courses have been selected as recipients for this year’s Canvas Course Site Hall of Fame Excellence in Canvas Engagement award. This student-nominated award recognizes an intentional commitment to excellence in course design and using tools within Canvas to support student learning.

• Lecturer Tara Zahler (Writing Studies): WRIT 1301 University Writing
• Assistant Professor Michael Bennett McNulty (Philosophy): PHIL 3601 Philosophy of Scientific Thought

Congratulations to the following recipients of the 2025 Awards for Academic Unit Service:

• University of Minnesota Unit Service Award ($10,000)
  • Professor Kathryn Scheil (English), University of Minnesota Unit Service Award ($10,000)
• Provost's Unit Service Award ($5,000)
  • Assistant Professor Brian Reese (Linguistics), Provost's Unit Service Award ($5,000)
• Award for Excellence in Academic Unit Service ($500)
  • Associate Professor Sophia Beal (Spanish & Portuguese Studies)
  • Assistant Professor Dan Card (Writing Studies)
  • Senior Lecturer David Cram Helwich (Communication Studies)
  • Associate Professor Scott Curie (School of Music)
  • Audiology Clinical Supervisor Shaeleen Fagre (Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences)
  • Associate Professor Andrew Gallia (History)
  • Assistant Professor Laura Garbes (Sociology)
  • Associate Professor Jessica Gordon-Roth (Philosophy)
  • Director of Graduate Studies, Visiting Associate Professor Thomas Gurke (German, Nordic, Slavic & Dutch)
  • Associate Professor Kyle Herkenhoff (Economics)
  • Senior Fellow Scott Libin (Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication)
  • Lecturer William Lindeke (Geography, Environment, and Society)
  • Lecturer Charles McNamara (Classical and Near Eastern Religions and Cultures)
  • Assistant Teaching Professor Liza Meredith (Psychology)
  • Professor Michael Minta (Political Science)
  • Associate Professor Elliott Powell (American Studies)

The Distinguished McKnight University Professorship program recognizes outstanding faculty members who have recently achieved full professor status. Recipients hold the title “Distinguished McKnight University Professor” for as long as they remain employed at the University of Minnesota. Congratulations to the following CLA faculty who were recognized as 2025 Distinguished McKnight University Professors:

• Professor Manual Amador (Economics)
• Professor Tanisha M. Fazal (Political Science)

The goal of the McKnight Land-Grant Professorship Program is to advance the careers of assistant professors at a crucial point in their professional lives. The designation of “McKnight Land-Grant Professor” is held by recipients for a two-year period. Congratulations to the following CLA faculty who were recognized as 2025 McKnight Land-Grant Professors:

• Assistant Professor Emily Fairfax (Geography, Environment & Society)
• Assistant Professor Megan Finch (English)
• Assistant Professor Aaron Hall (History)
• Assistant Professor Jessica Lopez Lyman (Chicano & Latino Studies)

Congratulations to Professor Timothy R. Johnson (Political Science) for receiving the 2025 Vickie R. Courtney Award for Outstanding Service to University Senate Governance. This recognition acknowledges faculty, students, academic professional and administrative (P&A) staff, and civil service staff systemwide who have made a significant impact on University Senate governance.

Congratulations to Associate Professor V. V. Ganeshananthan (English), 2025 recipient of the Sara Evans Leadership Award. This award recognizes faculty and academic professionals who are leaders in the advancement of women or gender-marginalized people at the University of Minnesota through leadership, academic excellence, advocacy, engagement and/or program development.

Congratulations to the following CLA faculty who were recognized for their outstanding contributions to graduate and/or professional education:

• Professor Elizabeth Heger Boyle (Sociology)
• Professor Bruce Braun (Geography, Environment & Society)
• Professor Timothy Andres Brennan (English and Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature)

Congratulations to Professor Teresa Toguchi Swartz (Sociology), recipient of the 2025 Distinguished Teachers Morse-Alumni Award. This honor is awarded to exceptional candidates nominated by colleges in their quest to identify excellence in undergraduate education. 

Congratulations to Resident Fellow Douglas Allchin (History, Philosophy), elected to the 2024 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) class of Fellows. Allchin joined the class of 471 scientists, engineers, and innovators across 24 disciplinary sections recognized for scientific and social achievements.

Awards

Professor Shaden M. Tageldin (Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature) was awarded the Honorable Mention for the 2025 Nineteenth-Century Studies Association (NCSA) Article Prize for her essay “Hugo, Translated: The Measures of Modernity in Muḥammad Rūḥī al-Khālidī’s Poetics of Comparative Literature,” PMLA 138.3 (2023): 616–38.

Associate Professor Kathryn Pearson (Political Science) is the 2025 College of Liberal Arts Dean's Medalist. Dean’s Medalists are scholars who exemplify the highest standards of research, instruction, interdisciplinary reach, University citizenship, academic leadership, and local and national engagement. 

Assistant Professor Chotsani Elaine Dean (Art) is the 2025 Waldfogel Scholar of the College and Assistant Professor Michael Esposito (Sociology) is the 2025 Scholar of the College.

Professor Jane Blocker (Art History) and Professor Kirsten Fischer (Art History) are the 2025 recipients of CLA's Arthur “Red” and Helene B. Motley Exemplary Teaching Award.

Senior Lecturers Sara Finney (Spanish & Portuguese Studies) and Marisol Galicia Estévez (Spanish & Portuguese Studies) are the 2025 recipients of CLA's Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award.

Graduate Programs Coordinator Allie Cooperman (Department of Writing Studies) and Assistant Professor Gabriela Spears-Rico (Chicano & Latino Studies, American Indian Studies) are the 2025 recipients of CLA's inaugural Excellence in Graduate Student Career Support Award.

Associate Professor Claire Segijn (Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication) is the 2025 recipient of CLA's Career Readiness Teaching Award.

Congratulations to the Spring 2025 Interdisciplinary Collaborative Workshop Awardee. The Hub is thrilled to support this multi-year project that directly engages in reparative work with communities affected by the University's colonial collecting practices.

• Kat Hayes (PI), Anthropology and Heritage Studies & Public History
• Dylan Goetsch, NAGPRA Coordinator, Office of Native American Affairs
• Audrianna Goodwin, Red Lake Nation, TRUTH (Towards Recognition and University-Tribal Healing Project) Project Research Assistant and Red Lake Tribal Research Fellow
• Ellen Holt-Werle, Institutional Archivist, University Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University Libraries
• Stewart Koyiyumptewa, Director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, representative of the Mimbres Advisory Committee
• Samantha Porter, Advanced Imaging and Visualization Research Associate, Liberal Arts Technologies and Innovation Services (LATIS), College of Liberal Arts

The University's Office for Public Engagement administers public engagement awards that recognize the breadth and depth of community-engaged research, teaching, and service across the University system. Congratulations to:

• Professor Cheryl Olman (Psychology), recipient of the Exemplary University-Community Partnership Award. This award recognizes an individual staff member for an exemplary community-engaged program or project.
• Associate Professor Elizabeth Wrigley-Field (Sociology), recipient of the Societal Impact Award. This award recognizes an individual researcher, a collaboration among individuals, or a particular research project or program for exemplary academically-based community-engaged service and outreach.

Fellowships & Grants

Professor David Chang (History) was awarded a long-term residential fellowship next year at the Newberry Library for his research project "Indigenous History is about the Future: California Native History and the Purposes of the Past."

Doctoral candidates Olivia Comstock (Art History) and Taylor Rose Payer (Art History) are recipients of the 2025 Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowship in American Art.

Fellowships & Grants

The University of Minnesota Twin Cities received two $500,000 grants from the Mellon Foundation:

• Assistant Professor Dwight K. Lewis Jr. (Philosophy) and Associate Professor Jessica Gordon-Roth (Philosophy): Transforming the Face of Philosophy to Effect Global Change Through the Center for Canon Expansion & Change (CCEC)
• Assistant Professor Jessica Horvath Williams (English), Associate Professor Jennie Row (French & Italian), Research Assistant Angela M. Carter (RIDGS), and Assistant Professor Erin Durban (Anthropology): A Critical Disability Studies Initiative: Interdisciplinary Scholarship & Community Engagement towards Social Justice

The University of Minnesota Twin Cities also received a $150,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation for the third phase of Professor Karen Mary Davalos' (Chicano & Latino Studies) project, Mexican American Art Since 1848. 

Awards

• PhD student Jake Harmon (Economics) and Ethan Cannon from the School of Public Health earned honors in the sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Health Data Competition (IHDC), hosted by the Business Advancement Center for Health (BACH) at the University of Minnesota. Their project, Bridging the Digital Divide. A Pathway for Small Practices in Promoting Interoperability, took third place.

Awards

Professor Helen Kinsella (Political Science) and Professor Josephine Lee (English) are recipients of the 2024 Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Award. The JEDI Award honors faculty who have done significant research, teaching or service/leadership to advance justice, equity, diversity and inclusion at the University, in the person's field of study, or in our broader community. 

Assistant Professor Kurt Fraser (Psychology) was named recipient of a 2024 Scialog Collaborative Innovation Award. Scialog, short for “science + dialog,” supports research by stimulating intensive interdisciplinary conversation and community building around a scientific theme of global importance.

Associate Professor Lisa Channer's (Theatre Arts & Dance) theatre company Theatre Novi Most was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) "Challenge America" grant for their upcoming project, AN OCEAN AWAY. Challenge America offers support for projects that extend the reach of the arts to underserved communities.

Dreaming our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiņ Artists and Knowledge Keepers, co-edited by Nash Gallery Director Curator Howard Oransky and Northrop Professor of American Studies Brenda Child, has been named a 2025 Minnesota Book Awards finalist in the Anthology category.

Red Stained: The Life of Hilda Simms by PhD candidate JoJo Bell (History) has been named a 2025 Minnesota Book Awards finalist in the General Non-Fiction category.

The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America by Professor Michelle Phelps (Sociology) has been named a 2025 Minnesota Book Awards finalist in the Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction category.

Publications & Creative Activities

Fellowships & Grants

Professor Nancy Luxon (Political Science) has been awarded a six-month residence as a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies-Leuphana in Germany. As Senior Fellow, Professor Luxon will be working on a book project titled, Alienation, Disalienation, and Freedom, which examines the intersection of politics and radical psychiatry in moments of political change, and monitoring junior Fellows from the Global South.

Assistant Professor Nida Sajid (Asian & Middle Eastern Studies) was awarded a seed grant under RIO's new Sustainable GeoCommunities initiative for her project Alliance for Waste Equity (AWE): Transforming Waste Management with Sustainable Community-Engaged Solutions.

Associate Professor Elizabeth Wrigley-Field (Sociology) has been named a 2025-2026 Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar.

Visit the current Accolades page