Honors & Awards

Nicole Ausmer to Receive the Outstanding Achievement in Diversity Award

The award is presented by the National Association of Campus Activities to individuals that positively contribute to the development of programs and services promoting cultural diversity, understanding, and awareness. Dr. Ausmer is director of Student Activities and Leadership Development at the University of Cincinnati.

University of Arkansas’ Jeffrey Allen Murdock Wins the 2021 Grammy Music Educator Award

The prestigious Grammy Music Educator Award recognizes current educators who have made a significant and lasting contribution to the field of music education and who demonstrate a commitment to the broader cause of maintaining music education in the schools.

Samson Jenekhe Wins the 2021 Polymer Physics Prize

Samson Jenekhe is the Boeing-Martin Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Washington. The Polymer Physics Prize was established in 1960 in conjunction with the Dow Chemical Company, which remains its chief supporter, and includes a cash award of $10,000.

University of California, Davis Chancellor Receives Lifetime Mentoring Award

Gary S. May, chancellor of the University of California, Davis, has received the 2021 Lifetime Mentor Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The award honors researchers who have positively impacted a department or institution over the course of 25 years.

Kiki Petrosino of the University of Virginia Wins the 2021 Rilke Prize

Professor Petrosino was honored for her poetry collection that weaves together a variety of poetic forms – villanelles, a heroic crown and erasure – to explore her Black heritage and larger societal issues with the legacy of slavery and race relations in America.

Esther Ngumbi Honored for Work to Enhance Public Engagement With Science

Esther Ngumbi, an assistant professor of entomology at the University of Illinois, is the 2021 recipient of the Mani L. Bhaumik Award for Public Engagement with Science, an annual award given out by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Previous winners have included Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Princeton University’s Keith Wailoo Will Share the $1 Million David Dan Prize

Keith Wailoo is the Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He is being honored for his historical scholarship focused on race, science, and health equity; on the social implications of medical innovation; and on the politics of disease.

Shirley Ann Jackson Wins Award From the American Association of Physics Teachers

Dr. Jackson was chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1995 to 1999. She then left government service to take over as the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1999. She was the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in any discipline from MIT.

Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates Jr. Honored by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Professor Gates received the Don M. Randel Award for Humanistic Studies from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The award has been given out only seven times since it was established in 1975.

Antoinette Landor of the University of Missouri Honored for Mentoring Undergraduate Researchers

Antoinette Landor, associate professor in the department of human development and family science in the College of Human Environmental Sciences at the University of Missouri, was recently named the 2020 Undergraduate Research Mentor by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

Creighton University Chemistry Scholar Honored by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation

Kayode Oshin, associate professor of chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, has been named a Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, an award honoring young faculty in the chemical sciences. He will receive a $75,000 award to help fund his research.

Asmeret Asefaw Berhe Wins the Joanne Simpson Medal From the American Geophysical Union

Asmeret Asefaw Berhe holds the Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences and Geology and is associate dean of the graduate division at the University of California, Merced. The main focus of her research is to understand the effect of changing environmental conditions on vital soil processes.

John Dabiri to Receive the 2020 Alan T. Waterman Award From the National Science Foundation

Waterman awardees each receive $1 million over five years for research in their chosen field of science. Dabiri says the funding will allow him to pursue research into some of the ways climate change challenges and threatens modern life.

Cornell’s Derrick Spires Wins First Book Award From the Modern Language Association

In the book, Dr. Spires, an associate professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, examines the parallel development of early Black print culture and legal and cultural understandings of U.S. citizenship between 1787 and 1861.

Sabrina Cherry of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington Wins Peace Corps Award

The Franklin H. Williams Award recognizes ethnically diverse Peace Corps volunteers who have returned from their assignments and have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to civic engagement, service, diversity, inclusion, and world peace.

Robert Bullard of Texas Southern University Honored by the United Nations

Dr. Bullard received the 2020 Champions of the Earth Lifetime Achievement award from the United Nations Environment Programme. Dr. Bullard was honored for his commitment and service to environmental justice.

The American Society of Criminology Honors Book by Berkeley Professor Nikki Jones

Nikki Jones, a professor of African American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, has won the 2020 Michael J. Hindelang Award from the American Society of Criminology. The award recognizes a book published within the past three years that makes the most outstanding contribution to research in criminology.

Louisiana State’s Tina Harris Honored by the National Communication Association

Tina M. Harris, who holds the Douglas L. Manship Sr.-Dori Maynard Race, Media, and Cultural Literacy Endowed Chair at the Manship School of Mass Communication, won the Francine Merritt Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Lives of Women in Communication.

Berkeley’s Nikki Jones Honored by the Western Society of Criminology

Nikki Jones, a professor of African American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, has been awarded the 2020 W.E.B. DuBois Award from the Western Society of Criminology for her work in raising awareness for racial and ethic issues in criminology and criminal justice.

Danielle Phillips-Cunningham Honored by the National Women’s Studies Association

Danielle Phillips-Cunningham, an associate professor of multicultural women's and gender studies at Texas Woman's University, is the recipient of a 2020 National Women's Studies Association's Sara A. Whaley Book Prize.

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