FACULTY AWARDS

Internal Awards

Research at UIC

University Scholar Awards

In September 2009, the University of Illinois Office of the President gave out the University Scholars Award, a three-year $10,000 award to eight people, three of whom hail from LAS. Marc Culler, department of mathematics, statistics and computer science, was granted the award for his study of topology and hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Yoshitaka Ishii, department of chemistry, was granted the award for his research on protein structures and the amyloid plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Finally, Walter Benn Michaels, department of English, was granted the award for his scholarship on critical theory and his theories about equality and cultural diversity. Read more about Culler, Ishii and Benn Michaels in the December 2008 edition of e-AtLAS.

UIC Researcher of the Year

“I always had an interest in health before I got into economics,” said Frank Chaloupka, the first winner of the UIC Researcher of the Year Award for social science and humanities. “Studying health behaviors meshed my interest in health and economics.” Chaloupka, UIC distinguished professor of economics, is especially interested in the economics of tobacco use and abuse. He has conducted several studies on the impact of cigarette price and tobacco control policies on tobacco use. His results have challenged the thought that many smokers were so dependent on nicotine that price changes would not affect smoking rates. In fact, Chaloupka discovered, increases in cigarette prices—including tax hikes—lead to significant reductions in consumption and smoking. “My research has really had an impact in the real world,” he said. “At the end of the day, it just makes it worth doing.”

“I always try to tackle problems others think are impossible. It makes it very exciting, especially if you succeed,” said Vladimir Gevorgyan, professor of chemistry. Gevorgyan, the first winner of the UIC Researcher of the Year in the natural sciences and engineering, is internationally known for his innovative ways of testing synthesized organic molecules for use in developing new drugs and other products. While he relies largely on his talented group of graduate students and post-docs to carry out his ideas, he urges them to always remain curious. “Even if you plan something and get something different, don’t throw it away right away. Look at it,” he said. “Very often this unplanned fruit turns out to be much more important. It’s serendipity.”

UIC Woman of the Year

In November 2008, Cynthia Jameson, professor emerita of chemistry and chemical engineering, was honored as the 2009 UIC Woman of the Year. She was honored for her efforts in support of women in science, especially in academia. “Many women are choosing not to go that route because they can see how difficult it is,” Jameson said in an interview published in the November 5th UIC News. “But the rewards are great,” she said. The Woman of the Year Award is sponsored by the Chancellor's Committee on the Status of Women.

UIC Institute for the Humanities

The UIC Institute for the Humanities sponsors an annual fellowship program that supports the research of LAS faculty.

The 2009-2010 Faculty Fellows and their projects are:

• Christopher Boyer, associate professor in the departments of history and Latin American and Latino studies, “Crosscuts: A Social History of Forests in Northern Mexico”
• John D'Emilio, professor in the departments of gender and women's studies and history, “Sexual Identity in Chicago 1950-2000”
• Colin Klein, assistant professor in the department of philosophy, “Looking Inside Your Head: What Neuroscience can (and can't) do for the Humanities”
• Anna Kornbluh, assistant professor in the department of English, “'To Realize Capital': Libidinal and Financial Economies in mid-Victorian Realist Form”
• Ellen McClure, associate professor in the department of Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese, “Creation, Authorship and the Will in Seventeenth-Century France”
• Constance Meinwald, associate professor in the department of philosophy, “PLATO” (for the Routledge Philosophers series)

UIC Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy

Kerry Ann Rockquemore, associate professor in the departments of African American studies and sociology, was awarded a Faculty Fellowship from the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy for the 2008-2009 academic year.

UIC Great Cities Institute

Ralph Cintron, associate professor of English and Latin American and Latino studies, received a Great Cities Faculty Scholar Award for 2009-2010.

Elena Gutierrez, associate professor of gender and women’s studies and Latin American and Latino studies, was awarded the Great Cities Institute Fellowship for 2009-2010. She was also awarded an Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy Faculty Fellowship.

Katrin Schultheiss, associate professor of history and gender and women’s studies, received the Great Cities Institute Faculty Fellowship for the Spring of 2009.

Women in Science and Engineering System Transformation (WISEST) Award

Qun-Tian Wang and Emily Minor, assistant professors of biology, were both awarded UIC’s WISEST Award.

Other UIC Research Awards

During the spring of 2009, Peter Ji, a visiting research assistant professor of psychology, was a recipient of a grant for LGBT research made possible by a grant from the David Bohnett Foundation to UIC. He will use the award to investigate the appropriateness of using the LGBT Ally Identity Development Scale in diverse populations.

Teaching at UIC

The Silver Circle Award is presented annually to outstanding teachers at UIC, and six of this past year’s winners were LAS faculty. The awards, chosen by the graduating class, are presented at commencement along with a $500 prize. The 2008-2009 LAS Silver Circle Award recipients were: Natasha Barnes, associate professor, African American studies and English; David Cabrera, lecturer, mathematics, statistics and computer science; Sandra Gibbons, visiting lecturer, biological sciences; Gary Noll, lecturer, psychology; Katherine Noll, lecturer, psychology; and Julie Peters, clinical assistant professor, history. On teaching, Sandra Gibbons, two-time Silver Circle recipient, said, “One of the aspects of teaching that is so important is how you can make a difference in someone's life in ways you can't even imagine at the moment.”

Three LAS professors were awarded the Graduate Mentoring Award, sponsored by the Graduate College. The winners are selected from nominations by their colleagues and students and receive a $2,000 prize. Mary Ashley, professor of biological sciences, mentors graduate students in her ecology and evolution lab, using genetic markers to study plants and animals. Wonhwa Cho, distinguished professor of chemical biology in the department of chemistry, helps his students to use physical, chemical and biological tools to identify and solve biomedical problems that stem from medical conditions such as cancer, asthma and arthritis. They identify the most important problems surrounding these conditions, then seek a solution through science that can be translated into medicine. Finally, Chris Messenger, professor of English, works with graduate students who are interested in American literature of the modern period. He guides them through their research, provides thoughtful feedback on their dissertations, prepares them for the PhD exams and provides thoughtful feedback on their dissertations.

UIC Flame Award for Teaching Excellence

Robin Grey, associate professor in the department of English, was one of two recipients of this year’s UIC Flame Award for Teaching Excellence, awarded by the Alumni Association. The award is “given to exceptional UIC educators who have made a lasting impression on their students’ lives and inspired students by ‘lighting the flame’ of desire for intellectual growth and lifelong learning.” Professor Grey received an award of $1,000 at a reception on March 12, 2009.

UIC Alumni Association Inspire Awards

Each year, the UIC Alumni Association recognizes individuals that have provided long-term, consistent and outstanding professional service to the UIC community with the Inspire Awards. The 2009 Inspire Award recipients are:

• Nancy Gebhardt, associate director of Jewish studies
• Susan R. Goldman, LAS distinguished professor of psychology and education
• Doris Graber, professor and director of graduate studies in the department of political science
• Sarah Rutter, teaching assistant in the department of English
• Gyorgy Turan, professor in the department of mathematics, statistics and computer science

UIC Council for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Teaching Excellence Award

In June 2009, the department of Germanic studies was chosen by UIC’s Council for Excellence in Teaching and Learning as one of two departments to be awarded the Departmental Teaching Excellence Award. The award comes with a $20,000 prize for the department.

UIC Award for Excellence in Teaching

In October 2008, the Award for Excellence in Teaching, which is peer-selected and includes a $5,000 salary increase, was awarded to Dibyen Majumdar, professor of mathematics, statistics and computer science and associate dean of LAS. Looking back on 28 years of teaching statistics to UIC students, Majumdar has no regrets. “I’m very glad things worked out the way they did,” he said with a smile. “Every time I go into class, my happiness index, if you can measure it, is at its peak.”

Research in LAS

LAS Distinguished Professors

The Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor Award was established in 2006 to commend exceptional faculty for their contributions to the LAS and UIC communities, as well as for their significant and sustained intellectual scholarship in their chosen fields. Each year, the Executive Committee of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences votes for superlative candidates in the humanities, social sciences, the natural sciences or interdisciplinary fields. Peter Shalen (PhD, Harvard University) is a professor of mathematics and one of the leading figures in low dimensional topology, a branch of mathematics that studies conceptual spaces called manifolds. He is also an affiliate professor at the University of Haifa and a member of the International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom of Bar-Ilan University. His research interests are three-dimensional topology, hyperbolic geometry and geometric and combinatorial group theory. He has served on the editorial board for the Bulletin of the American Math Society and on several NSF grant review committees. With his work appearing in the most prestigious journals in mathematics, including the Bulletin of the American Math Society, Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra, and Geometric Topology, Shalen has contributed to nearly every critical aspect of geometric topology. At UIC, he has built a world-class group in geometry and topology and attracted promising doctoral and post-doctoral students.

Henry Howe (PhD, University of Michigan) is a professor of biology and a preeminent ecologist whose primary research tests dispersal limitation in tropical trees in the restoration of plant dispersal processes in southern Mexico. His recent work includes a large exclosure project at the Morton Arboretum that tested the effects of seed-eating by birds and foliage consumption by voles on the density, productivity, dominance, species richness and diversity of synthetic tall-grass communities. Other projects along these lines involve rodent exclosures in Wisconsin, and several studies of the effects of burn season on the population and community ecology of tall-grass restorations. He is the co-author of Ecological Relationships of Plants and Animals, as well as the author of numerous articles that have appeared in Biotropica, Evolution and American Naturalist. The recipient of numerous grants and awards from the likes of the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society, he currently serves as director of graduate studies in ecology and evolution in the UIC Department of Biological Sciences.

Lennard J. Davis (PhD, Columbia University, New York) is a professor of English and disabilities studies. His recent book Obsession: A History, published in November 2008, explores the way obsessive-compulsive behaviors function within our society, both positively and negatively. The book received wide critical acclaim, including a place on the list of the Chicago Tribune’s "Top Five Books by Chicagoans in 2008." Davis is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Award, and a Fulbright Award and his book My Sense of Silence was nominated for a National Book Award. In total, he has written or edited twelve books. In addition to his appointments in English, disabilities studies and the UIC School of Medicine, Davis is also the director of Project Biocultures, a think-tank devoted to issues around the intersection of culture, medicine, disability, biotechnology and the biosphere. His current interests include disability-related issues, literary and cultural theory, as well as genetics, race, identity and biocultural issues.

LAS Interdisciplinary Research Awards

In the fall of 2008, the college announced a new Interdisciplinary Research Award Program intended to support work in the college that explores scholarly and research questions that transcend the methodological and conceptual boundaries of traditional disciplines.

Read more about the first funded projects in this new initiative.

Teaching in LAS

LAS Master Teacher Awards

Matthew Lippman, professor of criminology, law and justice, describes himself as "a teacher of the old school" for whom "learning is a joint journey of insight, knowledge and self-awareness: between a passionate and prepared instructor and students who are provoked, animated and inspired to learn and to develop." In his twenty three years at UIC, Lippman has received six Silver Circle awards, the Flame Award for Teaching Excellence, the Excellence in Teaching Award, and the Teaching Recognition (Portfolio Award) and has been named Honors College Fellow of the Year and, on three occasions, Alpha Phi Sigma Professor of the Year.

Karina Reyes, associate professor of psychology, studies and teaches clinical and community psychology with special attention to the prevention of high-risk behaviors among children and adolescents from urban minority and low-income status backgrounds. An alumna of UIC, she describes herself as delighted to return as a colleague to her former teachers. She believes "that students cannot be available to learn unless they feel safe to not know. That sense of safety is impossible if students do not experience their instructor as accessible and allied with them in the learning process."

David Weible, associate professor and head of Germanic studies, has maintained that an instructor’s chief concern should be to facilitate learning. In his 22 years at UIC, Weible has often turned to technology to find new, interesting and more effective means of presentation. Professor Astrida Tantillo, associate professor of Germanic studies, comments that the ‘breadth’ and ‘richness’ of Weible’s teaching allows students to understand such complex texts as Fassbinder films as well as the broad historical context from which they emerge.

Read more about the first class of LAS Master Teachers.