Accolades News for Researchers
Posted May 4, 2018 by Ashley Washburn
Awards, Honors and Recognitions
Dawn Braithwaite, communication studies, was honored through the creation of the inaugural Dawn O. Braithwaite Award for Qualitative Research. It was first presented at the Central States Communication Association’s annual meeting, April 4-7 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Interpersonal and Family Communications Interest Group created the award. A panel session also was presented in Braithwaite’s honor.
Elizabeth Conley, research technologist for agronomy and horticulture, received the President’s Citation from the Horticulture Club and Pi Alpha Xi, the national honor society for horticulture. Conley was honored for outstanding service in the field.
Kwame Dawes, English, received the Gwendolyn Brooks Award at the 2018 National Black Writers Conference, March 24 in Brooklyn, New York. The award honors writers who are committed to preserving the language and culture of black people across the world.
Kurt Geisinger, educational psychology and director of the Buros Center for Testing, was elected a fellow of the International Association of Applied Psychology, the organization’s highest level of membership. The honor recognizes substantial contributions to applied psychology. Geisinger will receive a certificate at the 29th International Congress of Applied Psychology in Montreal, Canada, in June.
Ted Hamann, teaching, learning and teacher education, was part of a binational team that received the Henry T. Trueba Award from Division G of the American Educational Research Association. The award recognizes distinguished contributions that lead to transforming the social contexts of education. During its 20-year collaboration, Hamann’s group has identified and transformed schooling conditions for thousands of transnationally mobile children and youth, publishing more than 30 scholarly articles, book chapters and a book. Other team members include Víctor Zúñiga, professor, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico; and Juan Sánchez García, research director at Nuevo León’s Institute for Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Education.
Michelle Hassler, journalism and mass communications, received $1,000 from the John Savage Visual Communications Scholarship at an April 27 Omaha Press Club dinner. This support will help embed journalism students in Lincoln’s poorest neighborhoods, where they will use photography to document residents’ day-to-day lives.
Deryl Hatch-Tocaimaza, educational administration, received the Barbara K. Townsend Emerging Scholar Award from the Council for the Study of Community Colleges at its annual meeting April 27 in Dallas, Texas. The award recognizes a new scholar for outstanding theoretical and/or applied research that contributes to the body of knowledge about community college; excellence in teaching, advising and/or mentoring; and integration of knowledge into teaching and service.
Tiffany Heng-Moss, entomology and associate dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources; Leon Higley, forensic science and natural resources; and Tom Hunt and Robert Wright, entomology and Nebraska Extension, received an International Integrated Pest Management Award of Excellence at the ninth International IPM Symposium, March 19-22 in Baltimore, Maryland. The team was recognized for contributions to the North Central Soybean Entomology Research and Extension Program, a collaboration among 12 state soybean associations aimed at improving soybean yield and profitability through university research and extension.
Margaret Jacobs, history and director of women’s and gender studies, was named Nebraska’s first-ever Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. With the two-year, $200,000 award, Jacobs will research and write a book addressing how the United States can take responsibility for human rights abuses against indigenous children, their families and their nations during the resettlement of America’s West by white Europeans. Jacobs is one of 31 scholars selected from among 270 nominees for the honor in 2018.
Neeta Kantamneni, educational psychology, received the 2017-2018 Fritz and Linn Kuder Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Counseling Psychology. The award, presented by the Society of Counseling Psychology (Division 17) of the American Psychological Association, honors distinguished scientific contributions by an early career psychologist to counseling psychology. Kantamneni will be honored Aug. 11 at the Division 17 business meeting, part of the 2018 APA Conference in San Francisco, California.
Bernard “Barney” McCoy and Luis-Peon Casanova, journalism and mass communications, received a 2018 national Sigma Delta Chi Award for excellence in journalism for the documentary “Black Jack Pershing: Love and War.” The awards recognize the best in professional journalism across platforms, including print, radio, television, newsletters, art/graphics, online and research. McCoy, who produced and directed the documentary, and Casanova, who was the film’s primary videographer, will be honored at the Sigma Delta Chi awards banquet June 8 in Washington, D.C.
Mitchell Montgomery, research technologist for agronomy and horticulture, received the Presidential Award of Excellence at the Nebraska Crop Improvement Association conference, Jan. 15-17 in Lincoln. The award recognizes individuals who have made special contributions to the Nebraska seed industry.
James Schnable, agronomy and horticulture, received the Marcus Rhoades Early Career Award in maize genetics at the 60th annual Maize Genetics Conference, March 24 in France. He was honored for his work delineating the functionality district subgenomes of maize and separate patterns of selection during the domestication of maize, sorghum and foxtail millet.
Michael Sibbernsen, physics and astronomy, received the 2018 Friend of Science Award from the Nebraska Academy of Sciences. It is the organization’s highest honor recognizing outstanding achievement in science education and scientific research. He was honored April 20 at the academy’s 128th annual meeting.
Richard Sutton, agronomy and horticulture, received the 2018 Excellence in Research and Creative Work Award: Senior Level during the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture awards luncheon, March 25 in Blacksburg, Virginia. The award recognizes faculty who have made outstanding, innovative and noteworthy research and/or creative activity related to the landscape architecture discipline.
Tyler White, political science, was named 2018 Instructor of the Year by the International Association for Intelligence Education. He was recognized for contributions to curricula and instruction in the intelligence fields, which include national security, law enforcement and competitive intelligence, among others. White will travel to Sydney, Australia, in July to receive the award at the IAFIE annual conference.
Three Nebraska researchers earned President’s Faculty Excellence Awards, the University of Nebraska’s most prestigious awards for research, creative activity, teaching and engagement. They include:
- David Hage, chemistry, received an Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award, which recognizes faculty for outstanding research or creative activity of national and international significance. Hage has conducted research at the interface of chemistry, biochemistry and clinical chemistry for more than 30 years, with a focus on creating and developing new detection and separation methods for chemical and biochemical analysis.
- Dennis Molfese, psychology, also received an ORCA. Molfese, founding director of the Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior, is a developmental cognitive neuropsychologist with extensive experience in conducting large-scale, longitudinal studies recording brain imaging and behavior measures in a range of populations.
- Colleen Medill, law, received an Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award. The award honors faculty with meritorious and sustained records of excellence and creativity in teaching. Medill is recognized nationally for her innovative teaching techniques in employee benefits law, property law and professional legal skills development.
Three faculty received the College of Arts and Sciences’ Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award at the CAS Celebration of Excellence in April. The college-level ORCA award recognizes CAS faculty’s extraordinary accomplishments. Recipients include:
- Jiantao Guo, chemistry, for significantly advancing multiple areas of chemical biology, including quadruplet codon decoding, HIV vaccine innovation and unnatural amino acid mutagenesis.
- Maureen Honey, English, for significantly advancing nationally recognized publications focused on Harlem Renaissance and women’s studies in the last five years.
- Kristen Olson, sociology, and survey research and methodology, for significantly advancing innovative approaches to survey methodology, with a focus on survey nonresponse, measurement and coverage errors.
The Department of Philosophy’s doctoral program was recognized in the 2018 edition of the Philosophical Gourmet Report, which ranks doctoral programs in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Nebraska’s doctoral program in philosophy was ranked 20th best in the U.S. for Meta-ethics and Moral Psychology and 19th best for Philosophy of Social Science in the English-speaking world. The program also was tied for 56th in the overall rankings.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln was named one of the world’s best four-year colleges for precision agriculture by PrecisionAg, an independent media group focused on precision agriculture techniques. PrecisionAg named the top 25 institutions based on feedback from peer institutions, industry experts and internet searches.
Professional Involvement
Mark van Roojen, philosophy, will serve as keynote speaker at the St. Louis Annual Conference on Reasons and Rationality, May 20-22.
The Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute coordinated the Water for Food track of sessions with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for the Eighth World Water Forum, March 18-23 in Brasilia, Brazil. The event, which focused on the challenges and solutions to ensuring global water security, drew more than 20,000 participants from 170 countries. A team of experts from Nebraska led sessions related to water use in food production or processing.
Publishing Honors
Angela Palmer-Wackerly, communication studies, and colleagues Anthony Adams, Virginia Chaidez, nutrition and health sciences, and Caitlyn Wayment, an undergraduate majoring in biological sciences and Spanish, received a Top Three Paper honor from the Intergroup Communication Interest Group of the International Communication Association. The paper, “Addressing Intergroup Communication Barriers through the Voice of Community Health Workers,” will be presented at the association’s conference in Prague, Czech Republic, in May.
Other News
Elizabeth Theiss-Morse was appointed interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. She will formally begin the appointment July 1, pending University of Nebraska Board of Regents approval. She has served as associate dean for faculty since 2015 and as chair of the Department of Political Science from 2008-2013.
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