Accolades
April 2024
Awards
Associate Professor Lisa Channer (Theatre Arts & Dance) is a recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board - Arts Experiences award for a Theatre Novi Most production of “Sickle,” a play by Abbey Fenbert.
Fellowships & Grants
Congratulations to CLA’s IAS Residential Faculty Fellows for 2024-25:
- Associate Professor Hakim Abderrezak (French & Italian): “Burning the Sea: Clandestine Crossings in the Mediterranean Seametery”
- Assistant Professor Megan Finch (English): “Black Women Unhinged: Idiocy, Madness, and Perverse Relations in Post-1960s Black Women’s Novels”
- Professor Christine Marran (Asian & Middle Eastern Studies): “Documenting Environmental Displacement and Trans-Pacific Immigration with Creative Nonfiction as Method”
- Associate Professor Cawo Abdi (Sociology) : “Intractable Public Education Inequities and The School Choice Debate: Somali Students in Minnesota”
- Associate Professor Lisa Channer (Theatre Arts & Dance): “Eileen in '60: A Documentary Film”
- Regents Professor Jean O'Brien (History): “Memory and Mobility: Grandma's Mahnomen, White Earth”
- Assistant Professor Catharine Saint-Croix (Philosophy): “Blades of Grass: Protest, Attention, and the Epistemic”
- Assistant Professor Jamele Watkins (German, Nordic, Slavic & Dutch): “From Solidarity to Terror: East Germany and Race Through the ’Free Angela Davis Campaign‘”
March 2024
Awards
Associate Professor Lamar Peterson (art) was awarded a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Peterson’s selection comes after a rigorous application and peer review process, one in which just 188 individuals were selected from almost 3,000 applicants based on outstanding achievement and exceptional promise.
Associate Professor Kat Hayes (Anthropology) is the recipient of the 2024 CLA Dean’s Medal.
Associate Professor Kelley Harness (School of Music) was named 2024 Scholar of the College and Professor Andrew Oxenham (Psychology) was named the 2024 Waldfogel Scholar of the College.
Associate Professor Kathleen Collins (Political Science) and Assistant Professor Jessica Lopez Lyman (Chicano & Latino Studies) are the 2024 recipients of CLA's Arthur “Red” and Helene B. Motley Exemplary Teaching Award.
Professor Katherine Scheil (English) is the 2024 recipient of CLA's Career Readiness Teaching Award.
Communications Specialist Terri Sutton (English) is the 2024 recipient of the CLA Career Readiness Advocate Award.
Senior Lecturers Fahima Aziz (Economics) and Katrien Vanpee (Asian & Middle Eastern Studies) are the 2024 recipients of CLA's Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award.
CLA recognizes the following staff members for their commitment and achievement as 2024 Outstanding Service Award recipients:
- Alexis Cuttance, Political Science
- Rachel Drake, English
- Keiko Ehret, French & Italian; German, Nordic, Slavic & Dutch
- Elleni Fellows, LATIS
- David Hanzal, School of Music
- Karen Haselmann, Art/LATIS
- Sarah Jahn, Psychology
- Lisa McDaniel, Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication
- Lisa Sass Zaragoza, Chicano & Latino Studies
- Charissa Blue, Undergraduate Education
- Amanda Nelson, History
- David Olsen, LATIS
- Liz Olson, Classical & Near Eastern Religions & Cultures
- Millie Reid Rivera, Theatre Arts & Dance
- Lamar Roberts, Undergraduate Education
- Carmen Sims, Communication Studies
- Amanda Steepleton, Liberal Arts Engagement Hub
Finance Documentation Team (workgroup)
- Kyle Blume
- Keiko Ehret
- Jennifer Franko
- Anna Freyberg
- Pam Groscost
- Royce Hunter
- Cheryl Oulicky
- Michael Sallberg
- Kory Schmitz
- Eric Short
Ted Mann Concert Hall (workgroup)
- Sari Baker
- Ben Eng
- Ben Kent
Workflow Hiring (workgroup)
- Corissa Arko
- Elleni Fellows
- Kara Kersteter
- Rana Murphy
- Patrick Russell
- Christopher Stordalen
Associate Professor Lisa Channer (Theatre Arts & Dance) received an IAS Fellowship for Spring 2025 and a Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals Grant for a new film entitled “Eileen in ‘60.”
Congratulations to the following recipients of MidCareer Faculty Research Awards:
- Assistant Professor Erin Durban (anthropology), Enabling Ethnography: Towards Anti-Ableist Knowledge Production
- Associate Professor Kerry Ebert (Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences), Effects of Systematic Client Feedback in Children’s Speech-Language Treatment
- Associate Professor James Lee (psychology) and Post-Doctoral Associate Emily Willoughby (psychology), Genome-wide Association Study of Cognitive Aging, Reaction Time, and Brain Size in the UK Biobank
- Associate Professor Mandy Menke (Spanish & Portuguese), Student Language Use in Critical Approaches to Language Education
- Associate Professor Patricia Ahearne-Kroll (Classical & Near Eastern Religions & Cultures), Commentary on Aseneth: A Study of Three Greek Texts and The Book History of Their Respective Codices
And congratulations to the following recipients of Warwick MidCareer Faculty Research Awards:
-
Associate Professor Claire Segijn (Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication), Media Effects and Ethical Ramifications of Phones ‘Listening’ into Offline Conversations
-
Associate Professor Jane Sumner (political science), The Politics of Small Business Ownership
Publications & Creative Activities
Northrop Professor Brenda Child (American Studies) was named a 2024 National Book Awards Judge by the National Book Foundation.
Professor Ana Forcinito (Spanish and Portuguese Studies) and Carolina Añón Suárez, (Ph.D. 2021 from the University of Minnesota, currently an Assistant Professor at Fairfield University) received recognition from the City of La Plata in Argentina for their volume Generación Hijes: memoria, posdictadura, y posconflicto en América Latina (Generation of Sons and Daughters: Memory, Post Dictatorship, and Postconflict in Latin America), published by Hispanic Issues Online at the University of Minnesota. The co-edited book was designated as being of municipal interest due to its significant contribution to Memory, Truth, and Justice on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the delivery of the Final Report of the CONADEP, known as Nunca Más (decree of the Deliberative Council, March 14, 2024).
Fellowships & Grants
February 2024
Awards
Congratulations to CLA's recipients of the 2023-2024 John Tate Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising:
- Associate Professor Sarah-Jane (Saje) Mathieu (History)
- Associate Director of Advising Bavi Weston
Congratulations to CLA's recipients of the 2024-26 McKnight Land-Grant Professorship Award:
- Assistant Professor Shir Alon (Asian and Middle Eastern Studies)
Assistant Professor Madelaine C. Cahuas (Geography, Environment & Society)
Assistant Professor Serra M. Hakyemez (Anthropology)
Assistant Professor Josef Woldense (African American and African Studies)
Professor Jisu Huh (Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication) was named a recipient of the 2023-24 Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education. This honor is awarded to exceptional candidates who have been nominated by colleges for excellence in graduate and professional education.
January 2024
Awards
Assistant Professor Jamele Watkins (German, Nordic, Slavic & Dutch) has been selected as a Residential Fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Advanced Study for spring 2025 for her project From Solidarity to Terror: East Germany and Race Through the "Free Angela Davis Campaign."
Associate Professor & Director of Urban Studies Kate Derickson (Geography, Environment & Society) was recognized as a 2024 Fellow by the American Association of Geographers. The AAG Fellows is a recognition and service program that applauds geographers who have made significant contributions to advancing geography.
Regents Professor Julie Schumacher (English) has been long-listed for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, given annually to a "mid-career fiction writer who has earned a distinguished reputation and the approbation and gratitude of readers."
Publications & Creative Activities
Professor Michal Kobialka (Theatre Arts & Dance)’s book A History of Polish Theatre (Cambridge University Press, 2022) has been selected for special honorable mention recognition in the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America’s 2023 Anna M. Cienciala Award competition.
Associate Professor Kathryn Nuernberger (English) in January published, with co-author Maya Jewell Zeller, Advanced Poetry: A Writer's Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2024). Nuernberger is one of two University professors receiving funding through the inaugural Artist-in-Residence program of the Research and Innovation Office, awarding projects that bring art and science together to illuminate important ideas. Through “Katydid Songs and Silent Crickets: Poems in the Grasses,” poet Nuernberger will learn about local pond and grassland habitats with College of Biological Sciences Regents Professor Marlene Zuk and use this research to write poems answering the griefs of climate change and mass extinction with songs of hope and beauty.
Fellowships & Grants
Assistant Professor Katerina Korola (German, Nordic, Slavic and Dutch) was awarded a fellowship at the University of Basel's eikones Center for the Theory and History of the Image for the 2024-25 academic year.
Professor Christophe Wall-Romana (French & Italian) was awarded a prestigious fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities for his project entitled “Translation and Critical Edition of Selected Writings by Ismayl Urbain (1812-1884).”
December 2023
Awards
Professor Katherine Scheil's (English) book, Anne-thology: Poems Re-Presenting Anne Shakespeare (Broken Sleep Books), was chosen as a Guardian Book of the Year 2023 and Daily Telegraph Book of the Year 2023.
-
Congratulations to Associate Professor Amy O'Connor for receiving the 2023 Outstanding Book Award from the National Communication Association's Public Relations Division PRIDE committee for her book The Routledge Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility Communication.
-
Congratulations to Associate Professor Adam Saffer, along with former Hubbard School postdoc Yan Qu, for receiving the 2023 Outstanding Article Award from the National Communication Association's Public Relations Division PRIDE committee for their article, "Issues, Publics, Organizations, and Personal Networks: Toward an Integrated Issue Engagement Model," which was published in the Journal of Public Relations Research.
-
The Hubbard School's Professional Master’s in Strategic Communication Program honored Kathy Tunheim (B.A. ’79) with the inaugural Aluminary Award during the program’s Annual Lecture.
Congratulations to the following faculty recipients of the University's Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Award:
-
Associate Professor Douglas Kearney (English)
-
Associate Professor Saje Mathieu (History)
Fellowships & Grants
Associate Professor Kathryn Nuernberger (English Languages & Lit) received an Artist-in-Residence award for her project “Katydid Songs and Silent Crickets: Poems in the Grasses."
Congratulations to the following recipients of Human Rights Initiative Research Funds:
- Assistant Professor Emily Winderman (Communication Studies) for their project “Healthcare Under Crisis: Reproductive Justice, Community Storytelling, and Minnesota’s “Safe Haven” Status”
- Professor Christine Baeumler (Art) and Professor Brenda J. Child (American Studies) for their project “North: Indigenous People and Climate Change Exhibition”
Congratulations to the following Fall 2023 Grant-in-Aid recipients:
- Professor Sinem Casale (Art History), "The Banquet as an Arena of Interaction at the Ottoman Court and Beyond"
- Professor Sophia Beal (Spanish & Portuguese Studies), "A Roof of One’s Own: Feminism and Housing in the Work of Brazilian Women Writers"
- Professor Margaret Hennefeld (Cultural Studies & Comp Lit), "Twenty-First Century Silent Film Culture"
- Professor Lorenzo Fabbri (French & Italian), "We Were Here: A Documentary on the Untold History of Blackness in Renaissance Europe"
- Professor Victoria Vargas (Music), "Amy Levy; Songs of Life and Love"
November 2023
Awards
Professor Anatoly Liberman's (German, Nordic, Slavic & Dutch) most recent book, Take My Word For It: A Dictionary of English Idioms (University of Minnesota Press, 2023), was listed as a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2023.
Co-Director of the Center for Writing and Minnesota Writing Project Jasmine Kar Tang received a 2023 International Writing Centers Association Outstanding Article Award for her article "Asians Are at the Writing Center" published in Praxis: A Writing Center Journal.
October 2023
Awards
Congratulations to the following individuals who were recently honored with the prestigious Award for Excellence in Academic Unit Service. This recognition is part of a trio of awards that celebrate exceptional individuals who have gone above and beyond to strengthen the functioning and climate of their academic units:
- Associate Professor Cawo (Awa) Abdi (Sociology)
- Associate Professor Tracey Deutsch (History)
- Associate Professor Karen Ho (Anthropology)
- Associate Professor Katherine Klink (Geography, Environment, and Society)
- Professor Vanessa Lee (Psychology)
- Assistant Professor Jessica Lopez-Lyman (Chicano and Latino Studies)
- Associate Professor Nathaniel Mills (English)
- Lecturer Erma Nezirevic (Spanish & Portuguese Studies)
- Associate Professor Amy O'Connor (Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication)
- Professor Hooi Ling Soh (Institute of Linguistics)
- Director of Clinical Programs in Audiology Kerry Witherell (Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences)
Congratulations to the following Political Science faculty, recent recipients of awards from the American Political Science Association:
- Professor Emerita Joan Tronto, recipient of the 2023 Benjamin E. Lippincott Award, for her book Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. This award recognizes a work of exceptional quality by a living political theorist that is still considered significant after a time span of at least 15 years since the original date of publication.
- Distinguished McKnight University Professor David Samuels, recipient of the Representation and Electoral Systems George H. Hallett Award, for his and Matt Shugart's book Presidents, Parties, and Prime Ministers: How the Separation of Powers Affects Party Organization and Behavior. This award is given to a book published at least 10 years ago that has made a lasting contribution to the literature on representation and electoral systems.
Publications & Creative Activities
Associate Professor Douglas Kearney's (English) book Optic Subwoof has won the $10,000 Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism from the Poetry Foundation. Optic Subwoof, a collection of talks that Professor Kearney presented for the Bagley Wright Lecture Series in 2020 and 2021, also won the 2023 Firecracker Award for Creative Nonfiction from the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses.
Associate Professor Christine Taitano Delisle's (American Indian Studies) book Placental Politics: CHamoru Women, White Womanhood, and Indigeneity under U.S. Colonialism in Guam received The 2023 Lora Romero First Book Publication Prize. This award, presented by the American Studies Association, was presented for the best first book in American Studies published during 2022.
Fellowships & Grants
Congratulations to Thomas Sargent Professor Mariacristina De Nardi (Economics) for being elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society, an international society for the advancement of economic theory in its relation to statistics and mathematics. Professor De Nardi is among a prestigious group of 11 other economists working in the United States to be elected this year.
September 2023
Awards
Congratulations to Alicia Hofelich Mohr, research services coordinator at the Liberal Arts Technologies and Innovation Services (LATIS), a recipient of the Research Technical Staff Award. These awards recognize staff for their distinguished service to the University of Minnesota research community and celebrate exemplary leadership that positively impacted their colleagues and advanced the University's mission.
Congratulations to Sociology Professors Doug Hartmann and Chris Uggen, recipients of the 2023 American Sociological Association (ASA)'s Public Understanding of Sociology Award. This award "...honors members who have made exemplary contributions to advance the public understanding of sociology, sociological research, and scholarship among the general public."
Congratulations to Sociology Postdoctoral Fellow Laura Garbes (Sociology), co-recipient of the 2023 American Sociological Association (ASA) Dissertation Award for "Racialized Airwaves: Tracing the sonic color line in the American public radio industry." The dissertation focuses on National Public Radio (NPR) and investigates the tension between the intention of reaching diverse audiences and the reality that NPR centers a white majority in its content, audience, and leadership.
Congratulations to Associate Professor Elizabeth Wrigley-Field (Sociology) who has been awarded the 2023 Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science (IAPHS) Early Career Award in Population Health. This award recognizes significant contributions to population health science by an individual who has received the PhD, MD or a comparable graduate degree no more than ten years before the year of the award.
Congratulations to Associate Professor Michael L. Walker (Sociology), the recipient of The Society for the Study of Social Problems' 2023 C. Wright Mills Award for his book Indefinite: Doing Time in Jail (Oxford University Press). The C. Wright Mills Award, established in 1964, is one of the most prestigious book awards in sociology.
Congratulations to Professor Gordon Legge (Psychology) for being selected as the 2024 APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award recipient. This award recognizes a member of the Association for Psychological Science for a lifetime of outstanding contributions to applied psychological research.
The Department of Psychology was ranked fourth globally and third in the US in the latest 2023 Best University Ranking by Research.com.
Congratulations to PhD alum Ketaki Jaywant (History), winner of the 2021 Sardar Patel Award (which honors the best doctoral dissertation on any aspect of modern India in any U.S. University or academic institution) for her dissertation, "Secularizing Caste: Mapping Nineteenth-Century Anti-caste Politics in Western India."
Publications & Creative Activities
Assistant Professor Danni Gilbert (Music) has published Music Educators Wanted: 10 Essential Qualifications for Success, 2023.
July 2023
Awards
Doctoral student Andrea Wiglesworth (Psychology) was awarded the Society of Indian Psychologists (SIP) Honored Student Member Award.
Congratulations to the following awardees who were selected for 2023 Research Infrastructure Investment Program awards:
- Advanced Imaging and Visualization Research Associate Samantha Porter (Liberal Arts Technologies & Innovation Services), “Proposal for Funding to Sustain and Enhance Advanced Imaging for the University of Minnesota”
- Associate Professor Eric Shook (Geography, Environment & Society), “Building a Spatial Maker Space in the GeoCommons”
Assistant Professor Jie Ding (Statistics) received the Early Career Program (ECP) award from the Army Research Office (ARO), one of the most prestigious honors bestowed by the Army on outstanding young scientists.
Fellowships & Grants
Professor Jean O’Brien (History) is one of three new UMN Regents Professors, the highest honor the University of Minnesota bestows on its faculty.
