Kinglsey Odigie, a postdoctoral researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey Science Center in Santa Cruz, California, received the Kharaka Award from the International Association of Geochemistry. He was honored for his doctoral dissertation on the remobilization of toxic metals by wildfires.
Dr. Odigie, a native of Nigeria, earned a Ph.D. in environmental toxicology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Keisha N. Blain, an assistant professor of history at the University of Iowa, received a 2016-17 American Fellowship from the American Association of University Women. During the fellowship, she will be a visiting scholar in the department of Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where she will work on her book Contesting the Global Color Line: Black Women, Nationalist Politics, and Internationalism.
Dr. Blain is a graduate of Binghamton University of the State University of New York System, where she majored in history and Africana studies. She holds a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University. Dr. Blain is co-editor of Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism, and Racial Violence (University of Georgia Press, 2016).
Maurice Williams, director of sports information at Hampton University in Virginia, received the 2016 President’s Award from the College Sports Information Directors of America. The award honors exemplary volunteer service and leadership within the organization.
Williams has been sports information director at Hampton University for the past nine years. He is a graduate of Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina, and holds master’s degrees from Old Dominion University and Hampton University.
Robert L. Belle Jr. was given the Lifetime Service Award from the Alumni Association Board of Directors and the Office of Alumni Engagement at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. Dr. Belle is the associate director for the Southern Regional Education Board State-Doctoral Scholars Program in Atlanta. He is the former director of the Office of Federal Trio Programs for the U.S. Department of Education.
Dr. Belle is a 1958 graduate of what is now Rowan University. He holds a master’s degree from Seton Hall University in New Jersey and a doctoral degree in counseling education from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Belle is worthy of this honor. Congrats to him and his family.
Dr. Belle is an extraordinary human being who devotes all of his energy and expertise to serving doctoral scholars grow and develop. His efforts are legion and his success stories are many. I congratulate Dr. Belle for this very high recognition. He is most deserving.