Kwame Dawes, English, was named an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, which recognizes some of the world’s best novelists, short story writers, poets, playwrights, biographers, historians, travel writers, literary critics and scriptwriters.
Ken Dewey, geography, received the 2018 Public Education Award from the National Weather Association. The award recognizes an individual or organization that contributes significantly to increasing the public’s weather awareness. Dewey will be recognized at the association’s Annual Awards Luncheon on Aug. 29 in St. Louis, Missouri.
Mark van Roojen, philosophy, was elected the Central Division’s representative to the American Philosophical Association’s board of officers. The APA supports the professional development of philosophers at all levels and works to foster greater understanding and appreciation of philosophy in academia and in the public arena.
Mark Griep, chemistry, and Bev DeVore-Wedding, postdoctoral research associate in chemistry, along with Janyce Woodard of Little Priest Tribal College in Winnebago and Hank Miller of Nebraska Indian Community College in Macy, published the “Lab Manual for Connecting Chemistry to the Tribal Community: Two Semesters of Chemistry Experiments and Teachings.” The manual’s lab exercises were created for a two-semester general, organic and biochemistry course sequence at Nebraska’s two tribal colleges, but are flexible enough to be used at other tribal and community colleges.
José Ángel Maldonado, communication studies, received the Dissertation Award from the Rhetoric Society of America, an interdisciplinary society for individuals who pursue scholarship in rhetoric. Maldonado was honored for his dissertation, “Diana’s Confession: Precarious Rhetoric in Post-NAFTA Mexico.” He received the award at the association’s annual meeting, May 30-June 3 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Top Awards
Wendy Smith of the Center for Science, Mathematics and Computer Education received $701,004 from the National Science Foundation for "Teacher Leadership (T-LEAD): Investigating the Persistence and Trajectories of Noyce Master Teaching Fellows."
Mark Griep, Department of Chemistry, received $339,683 from the National Science Foundation for "REU Site: Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Chemical Assembly at the University of Nebraska."
Massimiliano Pierobon, Department of Computer Science and Engineering (with Wei Niu of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering), received $499,528 from the National Science Foundation for "CIF: Small: WetComm: Foundations of Wet Communication Theory."
Maital Neta, Department of Psychology, received $756,711 from the National Science Foundation for "CAREER: Functional Brain Networks Mediating Positivity Bias in Healthy Aging."
John West and Charles Wood of the Nebraska Center for Virology, Department of Biochemistry, and School of Biological Sciences received $2,793,519 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services-National Cancer Institute for "KSHV, HIV and the Kaposi’s Sarcoma Tumor Niche."
Vitaly Zlotnik of the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (with Troy Gilmore and Aaron Mittelstet of the School of Natural Resources) received $387,030 from the National Science Foundation for "Evaluation of Watershed-Scale Groundwater Transit Time Distributions from Field Sampling and Numerical Modeling."
Scott Gardner of the School of Biological Sciences (with Judy Diamond, Donald Gettinger, and Gabor Racz of the University of Nebraska State Museum) received $499,988 from the National Science Foundation for "CSBR: Natural History: Digitizing and Conserving Specimens in the Manter Laboratory of Parasitology."
