Awards, Honors, and Professorships

	Sherman Alexie. Photo by Rob Casey.

Alexie Receives PEN/Faulkner Award

Sherman Alexie, senior artist in residence in the Department of American Ethnic Studies, knows a thing or two about awards. He's won the 2007 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award, and a bevy of other honors. Now he adds the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction to his resume.

Alexie received the award for his latest book, War Dances, a collection of structurally inventive pieces on the themes of love, betrayal, familial relationships, race, and class. The stories are interspersed with poems which refract their themes or topics. Read more.

	Putnam Fellow William Johnson. Photo by Mary Levin.

Prestigious Putnam Fellowship for Math Undergrad

William Johnson, who is majoring in mathematics and computer science, was named a Putnam Fellow, placing among the top five out of more than 4,000 students who competed this year.

"Just as Duke, Kansas, and Kentucky always seem to dominate in basketball, the Putnam Fellowships have been 'owned' by Harvard, MIT and Cal Tech. It's great to have a Husky join them," comments President Mark Emmert. "Our math department is truly remarkable in working with our students, and a real point of pride for us."

The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition is held each December by the Mathematical Association of America. The competition began in 1938, and is open to undergraduate students in the United States and Canada. This is the first time a UW student has been named a Putnam Fellow. Read more.

	Jentery Sayers

Sayers Named "Future Leader" for Digital Humanities Work

Jentery Sayers, a UW doctoral student in English literature and language who uses digital technology in his teaching, has received the annual K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award from the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The national award was given to just nine students who are committed to developing academic and civic responsibility, with a strong emphasis on teaching and learning.

Sayers teaches undergraduates to blend history, fiction, and digital technologies. His assignments range from having students blog, code, and write collaboratively to digitally re-animating print texts and conducting community-based research with the Boys and Girls Club of America. Read more.

Other Awards, Honors, and Professorships

Paul Berger, professor of art, has been awarded a Donald E. Petersen Professorship. The Petersen Professorship recognizes the contributions of outstanding faculty in the arts.

William Beyers, professor of geography, has received a grant from RESER (European Association for Research on Services) in recognition of lifelong achievement.

The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture has been selected as a recipient of the 2010 King County Executive's John D. Spellman Award for Exemplary Achievement in Historic Preservation.

Ana Mari Cauce, dean of the UW College of Arts and Sciences, has been appointed to the Jacob K. Javits Fellows Program Fellowship Board by Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education. The board selects students based on achievement, financial need and exceptional promise in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

Kenneth Clatterbaugh, professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy, has been awarded the Joff Hanauer Honors Professorship in Western Civilization for 2010-12.

Jennifer Cohen, assistant director of the Samuel and Althea Stroum Jewish Studies program, was honored with the Hannah G. Solomon Award by the National Council of Jewish Women's Seattle Section. The award is presented to an individual who has changed the lives of others through her leadership efforts and service. Cohen is a past president of the group and founder of Shalom Bayit: Furnishing Peaceful Homes, a furniture bank serving women coming out of abusive relationships who are unable to return safely to their homes.

Betsy Cooper, associate professor and director of the Dance Program, has been appointed to the Thomas L. and Margo G. Wyckoff Endowed Faculty Fellowship for a three-year term.

Patricia Buckley Ebrey, professor of history, has been elected the recipient of a Humboldt Research Award in recognition of lifetime achievements in research. Award winners are invited to spend a period of up to one year cooperating on a long-term research project with specialist colleagues at a research institution in Germany.

Scott Freeman, lecturer in the Department of Biology, has been selected to receive a 2010 UW Distinguished Teaching Award. The award will be presented at a special ceremony on June 10 in Meany Hall. The next issue of Perspectives newsletter will include more about Freeman and his award.

María Elena García, assistant professor in the Comparative History of Ideas Program, has received a 2010 Critical Animal Studies Award from the Institute for Critical Animal Studies for her research on the effects of development on Andean animals.

Jim Gill, acting assistant professor of mathematics, has been awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Huck Hodge, assistant professor of music, has won the 2010 Rome Prize for Music Composition. He will spend the 2010-2011 academic year at the American Academy in Rome.

Earl “Buz” Hunt, professor emeritus of psychology, has been given the Association for Psychological Science's James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award for 2011. The Cattell Award is the highest honor conferred by the APS. It recognizes distinguished APS members for a lifetime of outstanding contributions to applied psychological research.

Neal Koblitz, professor of mathematics, has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.

Monique Lacoste, a graduate student in the Department of Communication, has been selected to receive a 2010 UW Excellence in Teaching Award. The award will be presented at a special ceremony on June 10 in Meany Hall. The next issue of Perspectives newsletter will include more about Lacoste and her award.

Victoria Lawson, professor of geography, has been selected to receive the 2010 Marsha L. Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award, which recognizes faculty members who have made outstanding contributions to the education and guidance of graduate students. The award will be presented at a special ceremony on June 10 in Meany Hall. The next issue of Perspectives newsletter will include more about Lawson and her award.

Randall J. LeVeque, professor of applied mathematics, has been elected a SIAM Fellow by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. The honor acknowledges members of the SIAM community as leading thinkers and ambassadors of applied mathematics and computational science.

Max Lieblich, assistant professor of mathematics, has been awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship. The fellowship, awarded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, seeks to "stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise."

A team of Department of Mathematics undergraduates—Mark Bun, Jerry Li, and Ian Zemke—has been declared Outstanding Winner in the 2010 Mathematical Contest in Modeling, putting them in the top nine out of 2,254 participating teams. Bun is a double major in mathematics and computer science; Li is in the Early Entrance Program; and Zemke is a mathematics major. They are the eighth team from the UW to win this distinction in nine years. Two other UW teams, consisting of Tam Do, Dan Gnanapragasam, and Andrew Shi; and Jane Hung, Nick Janetos, and Milda Zizyte, were declared Meritorious Winners in the competition. As in previous years, Jim Morrow was the teams' faculty advisor. For more about the competition, visit University Week.

Andrew Meltzoff, Job and Gertud Tamaki Endowed Chair and co-director of the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, has been elected a member of the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine Board on Children, Youth, and Families. The board is part of The National Academics. For more about the board, visit http://www.bocyf.org/

Sean O'Donnell, associate professor of psychology, was elected vice-chair for research for the Organization for Tropical Studies. The organization provides leadership in education, research and the responsible use of natural resources in the tropics.

Firoozeh Papan-Matin, assistant professor of Near Eastern languages and civilization, has received a 2010-11 Fulbright Research Award for a comprehensive study of the early Chishti mystics whose influence remains powerful in India, especially in the Deccan region. This study will explore the scholarly contributions of these leaders in the context of medieval Islam, and will analyze the roots of their present popularity in the folk-culture of the Deccan.

Malcolm Parks, professor of communication, has been named editor of the Journal of Communication, one of the most highly cited journals among communication researchers and policymakers and the flagship journal of the International Communication Association.

Saadia M. Pekkanen, Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professor of international studies and adjunct professor of law, has been selected as among the first class of research associates for the National Asia Research Program, a new program of the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Priti Ramamurthy, associate professor of women studies, has been elected Vice President of the American Institute of Indian Studies. Christian Novetzke, associate professor of international studies, has been elected to the Executive Committee of the same organization.

Jennifer Salk, associate professor of dance, has been appointed to the Donald E. Petersen Endowed Fellowship for a three-year term.

Marc Seales, professor of music, and Stuart Dempster, professor emeritus of music, were inducted into the Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame.

Anu Taranath, senior lecturer in English and comparative history of ideas, has been selected to receive a 2010 UW Distinguished Teaching Award. The award will be presented at a special ceremony on June 10 in Meany Hall. The next issue of Perspectives newsletter will include more about Taranath and her award.

John Taylor, ceramic technician in the School of Art, has been selected to receive a 2010 UW Distinguished Staff Award. The award will be presented at a special ceremony on June 10 in Meany Hall. The next issue of Perspectives newsletter will include more about Taylor and his award.

Gunther Uhlmann, professor of mathematics, has been elected a SIAM Fellow by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. The honor acknowledges members of the SIAM community as leading thinkers and ambassadors of applied mathematics and computational science.

Cuong Vu, assistant professor of music, has been selected to receive a 2010 UW Distinguished Teaching Award. The award will be presented at a special ceremony on June 10 in Meany Hall. The next issue of Perspectives newsletter will include more about Vu and his award.

Elizabeth Wheat, a graduate student in the Department of Biology, has been selected to receive a 2010 UW Excellence in Teaching Award. The award will be presented at a special ceremony on June 10 in Meany Hall. The next issue of Perspectives newsletter will include more about Wheat and her award.

Return to Table of Contents, May 2010 issue