Awards and Recognition

Claudia Cohn is quoted in WCCO about low blood supplies and a renewed call for donors; Lee Frelich spoke with KARE 11 about how Minnesota’s warm winter has the potential to be 'incredibly damaging' to trees; Cristina Ortiz is interviewed in an Iowa Public Radio story about changing attitudes on immigration; Jiao Luo is quoted in the Star Tribune story “Some Minnesota corporations quietly resume donations to election disputers;” Michael Travisano is quoted in a Science Magazine story about a study showing that microbes that gave rise to all plants and animals became multicellular 1.6 billion years ago; Tetsuya Yamada is featured in a Star Tribune story about her Walker Art Center show; Zinzi Bailey is quoted in a USA Today story about DEI attacks posing a threat to medical training and care; Laura Molgaard is interviewed in a Brownfield Ag News story about the urgent vet shortage.

University of Minnesota Twin Cities electrical engineering professor Jian-Ping Wang has been awarded the 2024 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Magnetics Society Achievement Award. The highest honor in the field of magnetics, the award recognizes exceptional accomplishments and contributions to the field. Wang is being honored for his pioneering inventions and contributions to magnetic materials, devices, and applications in information storage and computation, particularly on magnetic media, MRAM, and in-memory computing. 

The American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) will honor the contributions of researchers from the Institute on Community Integration (ICI) and the Department of Educational Psychology.

ICI director Amy Hewitt will receive the 2024 Leadership Award, which recognizes courage, dedication, and outstanding contributions to the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Frank Symons, senior associate dean for research and policy in the Department of Educational Psychology, will receive the 2024 Research Award for investigations that have contributed significantly to the body of scientific knowledge in the field. ICI’s Brian Abery will receive the 2024 Service to the Field Award, recognizing his significant contributions to improved services for individuals with IDD. AAIDD also announced that Renáta Tichá will be recognized as a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.

Mary Butler is quoted in the New York Times story “What We Know About Multivitamins and Memory;” Bob Koch is interviewed for a CBS Minnesota story about the U of M helping farmers detect aphid infestations by using artificial intelligence and satellites; Ezra Golberstein is featured in a Minnpost story about fewer suicide attempts after school-based mental health was implemented in Hennepin County; Venkatram Mereddy is quoted in the Star Tribune about a UMD startup designing and testing potential cancer-fighting drugs; Julie Weisenhorn is interviewed in a Washington Post story about houseplant ‘hacks' could do more harm than good; Hubert Lim is quoted in a Washington Post story about a potential treatment for tinnitus; Robert Sterner is quoted in a USA Today story about his deep dive into sobering planetary changes going viral; David Marks is quoted in the Nature story "How CRISPR could yield the next blockbuster crop;" Rachel Hardeman and her work researching structural racism in health care were profiled in Stat News.

The University of Minnesota’s Crookston, Duluth, and Rochester campuses have been awarded the Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement, joining the Twin Cities (2006, 2015) and Morris campuses (2015) and making the U of M the country's first and only university system at which every individual campus has received this selective designation.

Of the nearly 4,000 qualifying U.S. universities and colleges, this prestigious recognition has been granted to only 368 institutions. Administered by the American Council on Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the classification requires evidence-based documentation of institutional policies and practices that support dynamic and noteworthy university-community engagement.

The Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics announced its 2023 research awardees. Totaling $6.75 million, this year’s awards fund innovative projects on cancer, rare genetic diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, cognitive aging and new health models to study diseases. The Minnesota Partnership is funded by the State of Minnesota and provides support for innovative research conducted by collaborative teams from the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic.

The Academies for Excellence recognizes outstanding faculty in the areas of scientific research, educational scholarship, clinical practice, and team science. 2023 inductees include inductees to the Academy for Excellence in Clinical Practice, the Academy for Excellence in Health Research, the Academy for Excellence in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and the Academy for Excellence in Team Science. See the 2023 Academies for Excellence inductees.

The Center for Animal Health and Food Safety at the U of M College of Veterinary Medicine has been awarded a seven-year, $4.99 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support veterinary services capacity-building in East Africa. The grant aims to specifically build capacity for the critical evaluation, evidence-based revision and long-term monitoring of disease control programs to support local systems of animal health and food safety through group training and workforce development.

The University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH) is one of 24 recipients across the country that collectively received nearly $16 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in pollution-prevention grants. SPH researchers will use the grant to fund a project to help local, immigrant-owned nail and hair salon businesses and their suppliers use safer, more environmentally friendly products aimed at reducing chronic exposure to hazardous materials. SPH Associate Professors Trân Huỳnh and Susan Arnold received funding for a project to help local, immigrant-owned nail salon businesses and their suppliers use safer, more environmentally friendly products and adopt other pollution prevention practices.

Joanne Billings has joined the Research and Innovation Office leadership team as its new associate vice president for research integrity and compliance. As AVP, Billings will oversee critical research integrity and regulatory functions of the Institutional Review Board, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, the Institutional Biosafety Committee, and the Office of Biotechnology Activities Oversight, among other roles.