Awards and Recognition

Clayton Cook, Department of Educational Psychology, and his colleagues from the University of Washington recently received a four year, $3.6 million grant from the National Institute for Mental Health to study the effects of trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy in schools.

The University of Minnesota’s Student Parent HELP Center (SPHC) recently received a gift from Minnesota Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr’s foundation Raise the Barr Emergency Grant Fund for Single Parent Undergraduates. This gift will be used to help support a new research initiative in SPHC that will evaluate the program and its impact on student parents’ successful graduation.

Social Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts recently ranked third in the nation for federal research and development expenditures according to the College and University Rankings.

Yingling Fan is quoted in a Star Tribune story suggesting that light rail stations could benefit from proposed safety measures at the Capitol; William Doherty comments in the New York Times (PDF) story, “It's Your Birthday and You Can Do What You Want To”; June Carbone is quoted in Forbes about whether women and men have a confidence gap; Michael Osterholm is quoted in a Star Tribune story about how Minnesota health officials are preparing for coronavirus; President Joan Gabel spoke about student mental health, development plans, and transparency with the Minnesota Daily; James Johnson is quoted in a Bloomberg story about how the coronavirus has exposed faults in the antibiotics pipeline; Marguerite DeLiema is quoted in a Quartz story about how precious-metals sellers fearmonger to conservative seniors.

The recipients of the 2019-20 Distinguished Teaching Awards have been announced. The Morse-Alumni and the Graduate and Professional teaching awards recognize teachers' commitment to the ongoing improvement of teaching and learning at the University of Minnesota. Recipients of these systemwide awards are inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Teachers and carry the designation of Distinguished University Teaching Professor or Distinguished University Teacher throughout their careers at the University of Minnesota.

Horace A. Morse – University of Minnesota Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education

Julia K. Dabbs, Art History, Division of Humanities, Morris

Shaul Hanany, Physics & Astronomy, College of Science & Engineering, Twin Cities

Barry Kudrowitz, Design, Housing & Apparel, College of Design, Twin Cities

Richard M. Lee, Psychology, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities

Chris Leighton, Chemical Engineering & Materials Science, College of Science & Engineering, Twin Cities

Malinda Alaine Lindquist, History, College of Liberal Arts, Twin Cities

Thomas Michaels, Horticultural Science, College of Food, Agricultural & Natural Resource Sciences, Twin Cities

Justin Revenaugh, Earth & Environmental Sciences, College of Science & Engineering, Twin Cities

Deena Wassenberg, Biology Teaching & Learning, College of Biological Sciences, Twin Cities

Learn more about the recipients. 

Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education

Jane Blocker, Art History, College of Liberal Arts

Penny Edgell, Sociology, College of Liberal Arts

Joseph Kapusta, Physics & Astronomy, College of Science & Engineering

Gordon Legge, Psychology, College of Liberal Arts

Jody Lulich, Veterinary Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine

Donald G. Truhlar, Chemistry, College of Science & Engineering

Carston R. Wagner, Medicinal Chemistry, College of Pharmacy

Ann Waltner, History, College of Liberal Arts

Learn more about the recipients. 

The Tate Awards recognize and reward high-quality academic advising and call attention to the contribution academic advising makes to helping students formulate and achieve intellectual, career, and personal goals. By highlighting examples of outstanding advising, the Tate Awards identify professional models and celebrate the role that academic advising plays in the University’s educational mission. The awards will be presented during the luncheon of the Tate Advising Conference on March 4.

2019-20 recipients of the John Tate Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising

Amy Burger Sánchez, Program Director for CCAPS Individualized Degrees, College of Continuing and Professional Studies, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Barbara Burke, Associate Professor of Communication, Media, and Rhetoric, University of Minnesota Morris

Tara Dillon, Senior Career Coach, Undergraduate Business Career Center, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Anna Mraz, Senior Academic Advisor, College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Learn more about the award and the recipients.

The Office of Academic Clinical Affairs’ BOLD Ideas grant program encourages interdisciplinary collaborations to tackle the “wicked” problems affecting community and individual health. Seven teams have been awarded funding in the current cycle.

Projects funded in 2020

Obesity Mapping with State-Issued Identification Cards

PI: Lucia Levers
Co-investigators: Peter Wiringa, Ann Zukoski, Jacob Walker-Swaney

• Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, U-Spatial, Minnesota Department of Health

An Innovative Dementia Friendly Living Space

PI: Arshia Khan
Co-investigators: Lisa Fitzpatrick, Alexis Elder, Catherine McCarty, Michael Swanoski, Marat Bakpayave

• Science and Engineering, Fine Arts, Liberal Arts, Medicine, Pharmacy, Business (Duluth)

Using Natural Language Processing to Extract Predictors of Medical Device Adverse Events

PI: Pinar Karaca-Mandic
Co-investigators: Soumya Sen, Yi Zhu, Alexander Everhart

• Management, Public Health

Holistic Approaches in Addressing Complex Health Disparities at the Intersection of Pets and Their People

PI: Emily Walz
Co-investigators: Cheryl Robertson, Megan Morrissey

• Veterinary Medicine, Nursing, Social Work

Dental Hygiene/Medicine Hospital Rounding Collaboration

PI: Cynthia Stull
Co-investigators: Kathleen Lane, Melissa Plesac

Dentistry, Medicine

Utilizing Innovative Clinic Design to Address Health Disparities

PI: Kacey Justesen
Co-investigators: Tom Fisher, Jon Hallberg, Jason Ricco, Jess Roberts

• Medicine, Design

A Pilot Project Exploring Neuropathways of Music-Induced Craving in Adults with Opioid Addictions

PI: Michael Silverman
Co-investigators: Shalom Michaeli, Silvia Mangia

• Liberal Arts, Medicine

The Office of Academic Clinical Affairs (OACA) Faculty Research Development Grant Program received 34 applications. A group of 20 reviewers from across the University worked diligently to identify the $200,000 grant recipients. Learn more about these funding opportunties. 

Erin Carlson, PhD, associate professor, College of Science & Engineering; and Ryan Hunter, PhD, assistant professor, Medical School

• “Histidine Kinase Inhibitors to Target Bacterial Virulences”

Yue Chen, PhD, assistant professor, College of Biological Sciences; and Peter Gordon, MD, PhD, assistant professor, Medical School

• “Mechanisms and Clinical Insights to Target the Oncogenic Proline Hydroxylation Pathway in AML”

Ameeta Kelekar, PhD, associate professor, Medical School; and Natalia Tretykaova, PhD, professor, College of Pharmacy

• “Exploiting Natural Metabolite Alpha Ketoglutarate for Cancer Therapy and Immunotherapy”

Ling Li, PhD, professor, College of Pharmacy; and Shauna Yuan, MD, associate professor, Medical School

• “Modeling and Reversing Alzheimer's Pathology via Human Brain Organoids”

Surbhi Shah, MD, assistant professor, Medical School; and Brad Holschuh, PhD, assistant professor, College of Design

• “Developing Easy to Don Compression Stockings: Smart Garments to Improve Compliance with Compression Therapy”

Julia Sterman, PhD, assistant professor, Center for Allied Health Programs; and Joseph Merighi, PhD, associate professor, College of Education and Human Development-School of Social Work

• “Emergency Preparedness for Children with Disabilities or Chronic Health Conditions and Their Families in Minnesota”

Mike Osterholm co-authors an editorial in the NY Times, "Is It a Pandemic Yet?"; Stephanie Carlson is quoted in Fatherly about the developmental reason kids love it when parents play monster; Ted Hinchcliffe and James Robinson are mentioned in an Austin Daily Herald story about a collaboration between The Hormel Institute and Mayo Clinic that is looking to find a treatment for brain cancer in children; Kirsten Delegard is interviewed in a CNN story about racist language woven into home deeds across America; Jeffrey Grell is quoted in Quartz about what a RICO charge means for Huawei; Ashley Thompson is quoted in the Star Tribune about the leap year tradition for women to ask men to marry; Walter Low, Jian-Ping Wang, and others are quoted in a Minnesota Daily story about U research to create an implantable brain chip to combat neurological diseases.

The Bentson Foundation is giving $15 million to the University of Minnesota to reverse lower rates of undergraduate admission, retention, and graduation among students with the greatest financial need. This gift brings the Bentson Foundation and family’s cumulative giving to the University to over $50 million, largely in support of students. Announced by University President Joan Gabel at the February Board of Regents meeting, the Bentson Foundation’s gift will create new opportunities for low-income undergraduate students on every campus and provide significant incentive funding to encourage other donors to establish scholarship endowments that help these students by creating the Bentson Scholarship Challenge.