Accolades and Top Awards according to the Office of Research and Economic Development:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Two Nebraska CAS researchers earned President’s Faculty Excellence Awards, the University of Nebraska’s most prestigious awards for research, creative activity, teaching and engagement:
- 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.
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.
Top Awards from Public Sponsors
Department of Biochemistry/Department of Chemistry/Department of Plant Pathology/School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
- D. Becker, J. Adamec, J. Alfano, L. Du, R. Franco Cruz, O. Khalimonchuk, J. Lee, S. Ro, J. Stone, M. Wilson, L. Zhang
- $298,186
- National Science Foundation
- REU Site: Training in Redox Biology
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
- L. Elkins, C. Burberry
- $413,437
- NSF
- Testing Extrusion Tectonics, Rifting and Lithosphere-asthenosphere Coupling Models for the Central Highlands Diffuse Igneous Province, Vietnam
Department of Physics and Astronomy
- D. Umstadter, S. Banerjee, S. Chen
- $638,252
- National Strategic Research Institute at the University of Nebraska
- Detection of Buried and Hidden Explosives Using Laser-driven High-energy Electron Beams
