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Dear colleagues,

As the departmental and University-wide Commencement celebrations get underway starting today —and as we wrap up State Employee Appreciation Week — I want to recognize all of our hardworking and committed faculty and staff this semester for all you do to make the College of Arts and Sciences a place for learning and discovery, a hive of personal and professional success, and a source of collaboration and belonging.

The Office of Human Resources and Equal Opportunity and Compliance recently published its 2024 State Service Recognition honorees, and I want to laud the many College faculty and staff who have achieved notable milestones this year.

The Dean’s Office recently asked our department chairs and center directors to send us a list of faculty and staff who had received significant honors and recognitions this spring. Below is a list of the many names we received. (Please note that the names of our newest distinguished professors will be announced once they are approved by the Board of Trustees, as is our standard procedure, and there will be a separate announcement about them.)

I recognize that this list is incomplete, with the request coming as departments were busy wrapping up exams and other end-of-semester duties. Our faculty and staff are truly excellent and their list of accomplishments very long and constantly growing. To our department chairs and managers, if a name of a faculty or staff member was left off this list, please email the College’s director of communications, Geneva Collins, by Wednesday, May 15. We’ll be publishing this list on our college.unc.edu website and can add the names to the web version.

Let’s make this a new end-of-semester tradition! Thank you again for all you do for the College and for Carolina.

Sincerely,

Jim

James W.C. White

Craver Family Dean

College of Arts and Sciences

HONORS AND AWARDS TO COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES FACULTY AND STAFF, SPRING 2024

African, African American and Diaspora Studies

  • Petal Samuel, assistant professor, was awarded a Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship by the American Association of University Women.

Art and Art History

  • Martín Wannam, assistant professor, received the 2024 Schwab Academic Excellence Award from the Institute for the Arts and Humanities.

Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

  • Luoyi Cai, teaching associate professor, received the 2024 Tanner Award from the University.
  • Pamela Lothspeich, professor, was awarded the 2024 article prize by the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies for her article “Pandit Radheshyam’s Ramayan: A Sourcebook for Ramlila Scripts in the Orbit of Bareilly,” published in the Journal of Hindu Studies.
  • Morgan Pitelka, department chair and Bernard L. Herman Distinguished Professor, received an Honorable Mention from the Association of Asian Studies for the 2024 John Whitney Hall Book Prize in Japanese Studies for his book Reading Medieval Ruins: Urban Life and Destruction in Sixteenth-Century Japan (Cambridge, 2022).
  • Claudia Yaghoobi was appointed Roshan Distinguished Professor.

Biology

  • Gregory Copenhaver, Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Convergent Science, was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors.
  • Jeff Dangl, John N. Couch Professor, received the Philip N. Benfey Arabidopsis Community Lifetime Achievement Award.
  • Mara Evans, teaching associate professor, received a 2024 Undergraduate Student Teaching Award and the Innovation in Biomedical Graduate Teaching Award.
  • Alaina Garland, teaching assistant professor, received a 2024 Undergraduate Student Teaching Award.
  • Eric Hastie, teaching assistant professor, received a 2024 Undergraduate Student Teaching Award.
  • Corey Johnson, teaching professor, received the 23/24 Tri-Beta Biology Faculty Excellence Teaching Award.
  • Summer Montgomery, undergraduate student services manager, received a C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award from the University.
  • Lillian Zwemer, teaching assistant professor, received the 2024 Out in STEM Inclusive Teaching Award.

Biomedical Engineering

  • Rekha Balasubramanyam received the 2024 EHRA College of Engineering Award for Excellence.
  • Naji Husseini, teaching assistant professor, received a 2024 Johnston Teaching Excellence Award from the University.
  • Derek Kamper, associate professor, was elected to the 2024  Class of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering College of Fellows.
  • Roger Narayan, professor, was elected a 2024 Fellow to the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society.

Carolina Center for Jewish Studies

  • Gabrielle Berlinger, associate professor in American studies and Babette S. and Bernard J. Tanenbaum Scholar in Jewish studies, received a Schwab Academic Excellence Award from the Institute for the Arts and Humanities.
  • Adi Nester, assistant professor in Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures and Levine-Sklut Fellow in Jewish studies, received a Schwab Academic Excellence Award from the Institute for the Arts and Humanities.

Carolina Public Humanities

  • James Brian Entzminger has been recognized with the Warren Nord Distinguished Service Award.

Chemistry

  • Joshua Beaver, teaching associate professor, received a Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the University.
  • Elizabeth Brunk, assistant professor, was honored by Morehead-Cain Seniors for Excellence in Teaching and Mentorship.
  • Abigail Knight, assistant professor, received a Sloan Research Fellow award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
  • Gary Pielak, Kenan Distinguished Professor, was named a 2024 fellow of the Biophysical Society and honored by Morehead-Cain Seniors for Excellence in Teaching and Mentorship.
  • Sidney Wilkerson-Hill, assistant professor, received the Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award from the Camile and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, the FMC New Investigator Award from the FMC Corp., and a Sloan Research Fellow award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

City and Regional Planning

  • Yan Song, professor and chair, became editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Planning Association beginning Jan. 1.
  • Meenu Tewari, professor, was elected as a member of the Arts and Sciences Advisory Committee for a three-year term.

Classics

  • Timothy Shea, assistant professor and John Wesley and Hodgin Hanes Fellow, was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to conduct research at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Communication

  • Sarah Dempsey, assistant professor, received a 2024 Distinguished Teaching Award for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction from the University.
  • Julia Haslett, associate professor, is the recipient of the 2024-2025 Senior Faculty Research and Scholarly Leave Award.
  • Joseph Megel, teaching professor, received the Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the University.
  • Michael Palm, associate professor, received a 2024 J. Carlyle Sitterson Award for Teaching First-Year Students.
  • Kumi Silva, associate professor, was named the Caroline H. and Thomas S. Royster Distinguished Professor for Graduate Education.
  • Michael Waltman, associate professor, received the 2024 William C. Friday/Class of 1986 Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Computer Science

  • Roni Sengupta, assistant professor, received the Trailblazer R21 Award from the NIH National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Economics

  • Luca Flabbi, professor, was recognized for having the Top Cited Article 2022-2023, International Economics Review, for “Labor Market Search, Informality, and Schooling Investment.”
  • Donna Gilleskie, professor and chair, was appointed a Distinguished Fellow of the Southern Economic Association.

English and Comparative Literature

  • Stephanie DeGooyer, assistant professor and Frank Borden and Barbara Lasater Hanes Fellow, received a Lando grant from the DeGroot Foundation and an IAH Fellowship for Spring 2025.
  • Florence Dore, professor, received the 2024 Board of Governors’ Award for Excellence in Teaching.
  • Rebecka Rutledge Fisher, professor, was awarded the Spring 2024 Camargo Prize and Residency from the Camargo Foundation.
  • Bradley Hammer, teaching professor, received a J. Carlyle Sitterson Award for Teaching First-Year students.
  • Courtney Rivard, assistant professor, received a Faculty Award for Global Excellence from the University’s Vice Provost for Global Affairs.

Exercise and Sport Science

  • Shelby Baez, assistant professor, received the Distinguished Young Professional Award from the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Trainers’ Association and the Freddie Fu New Investigator Award from the National Athletic Trainers’ Association.
  • Troy Blackburn, professor and chair, received the Medal for Distinguished Athletic Training Research from the National Athletic Trainers’ Association.
  • Johna Register-Mihalik, associate professor, received the Established Career Free Communications Award from the National Athletic Trainers’ Association.
  • Erianne Weight, professor, received the Distinguished Teaching Award for Post-Baccalaureate Instruction from the University
  • Zachary Yukio Kerr, associate professor, received the Student Undergraduate Teaching and Staff Award.

Geography and Environment

  • Clark Gray, professor, received the 2023 IPUMs Research Award for his work on “Heat and drought reduce subnational population growth in the global tropics.”
  • Danielle Purifoy, assistant professor, was named a fellow of the American Association of Geographers, was named to the Father Royden B Davis, S.J. Chair for spring 2025 at Georgetown University, and was awarded a 2024-2025 Mellon Fellowship in Democracy and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks.
  • Elizabeth (Betsy) Olson, professor, received the 2024 Diversity and Inclusion Award from the American Association of Geographers.
  • Chérie Rivers, associate professor, received a fellowship from the Warren Center at Harvard University.
  • Sara Smith, professor, received the Schwab Academic Excellence Award from the Institute of Arts and Humanities in recognition of her outstanding scholarship.

History

  • Henry Gruber, assistant professor, was awarded the Harvard University Committee on Medieval Studies Ph.D. Thesis Prize for his dissertation, “Wars and Rumors of War: Archaeology, Violence, and the End of Roman Spain.”
  • Antwain Hunter, assistant professor, received the Engaged Research Award from the UNC Office of the Provost.
  • Klaus Larres, Richard M. Krasno Distinguished Professor, received a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.
  • Katherine Turk, associate professor, was elected to the membership of the Society of American Historians and received a William C. Friday Arts and Humanities Research Award from the Institute for the Arts and Humanities; her book The Women of NOW: How Feminists Built an Organization that Transformed America, was named one of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2023.

Mathematics

  • David Rose, professor, and a former student received the 2024 G. De B. Robinson Award from the Canadian Mathematical Society.

Philosophy

  • Mariska Leunissen, professor, received a UNC Chapman Family Teaching Award.

Physics and Astronomy

  • Carl Rodriguez, assistant professor, received 2024 Helen B. Warner Prize from the American Astronomical Society.

Political Science

  • Evelyne Huber, Morehead Alumni Distinguished Professor, received the Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Student and Academic Program Support
  • Isaac Unah, associate professor, received a UNC Chapman Family Teaching Award.

Psychology and Neuroscience

  • Kenneth Bollen, Henry Rudolph Immerwahr Distinguished Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience and Sociology, received the 2024 Academic Ace Award from Woxsen University in Hyderbad, India, which has established the Kenneth A. Bollen Chair of Structural Equation Models.
  • Kristen Lindquist, professor, was appointed president of the Society for Affective Science.
  • Julian Rucker, assistant professor, was named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science.
  • Viji Sathy, professor of the practice in psychology and associate dean for evaluation and assessment, received the American Psychological Association’s Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award.

Public Policy

  • Anna Krome-Lukens, teaching associate professor, received a UNC Chapman Family Teaching Award.

Curriculum in Peace, War and Defense

  • Erinn Whitaker, professor of the practice, received a Faculty Award for Global Excellence from the Vice Provost for Global Affairs.

Romance Studies

  • Lorna Aviles, teaching assistant professor, received a UNC Johnston Teaching Excellence Award.
  • Oswaldo Estrada, professor, received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar award to travel to Spain in fall 2024.

Sociology

  • Barbara Entwisle, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology, was appointed chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the U.S. Census Bureau.
  • Tania Jenkins, assistant professor, was awarded the 2024 Southern Sociological Society’s Junior Scholar Award.
  • Arne Kalleberg, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
  • Alexandrea Ravenelle, assistant professor, received the Graduate Center of the City University of New York 2024 Alumni Award.

Office of Undergraduate Education

  • Nicholas Siedentop, director of undergraduate curricula, received a 2024 C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award from the University

Academic Advising

  • Madison Cabral, Thrive Advisor, received a Mickel-Shaw Excellence in Advising Award.
  • Emma Dove, Thrive Advisor, received a Mickel-Shaw Excellence in Advising Award.
  • Lucas Fayard, Center for Student Success, received a Class of 1996 Award for Advising Excellence.
  • Kristin Hondros, teaching associate professor, department of communication, and advisor, received a Class of 1996 Award for Advising Excellence.
  • Hanna Humphrey, Thrive Advisor, received a Mickel-Shaw Excellence in Advising Award.
  • Elizabeth Moran, Thrive Advisor, received a Mickel-Shaw Excellence in Advising Award.
  • Katheryne Zambrana, academic support program for student athletes, received a Class of 1996 Award for Advising Excellence.
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