Awards and Recognition

University of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering Professor Vladimir Sverak was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), one of the nation’s most prestigious honor societies. AAAS recognizes those making preeminent contributions to their fields and the world. Members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.

Sverak, a professor in the School of Mathematics, is a world-renowned expert in partial differential equations. These equations are used to mathematically formulate and solve problems involving functions of several variables, such as fluid flows, wave motion, computations of material stress, and many others. Their broad applicability makes them ubiquitous in both theoretical and applied sciences. Sverak joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota in 1994. He was named a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in 2000 and has received many other awards for his mathematics research, including the 2017 Prize for Mathematics from the Neuron Foundation in Prague.

Philip Zelazo, Nancy M. and John E. Lindahl Professor in the Institute of Child Development (ICD), has been elected to the 2023 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) class of fellows.

Professor Joshua Feinberg, Earth & Environmental Sciences, College of Science and Engineering, joins Zelazo as one of 502 national and international scientists, engineers, and innovators elected this year. The AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and has been awarding the lifetime recognition of Fellows since 1874.

Zelazo is being honored for “distinguished contributions to the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience, including outstanding research delineating the development of executive function (i.e., conscious self-control of thought, action, and emotion).”

Joshua Feinberg leads the Feinberg Research Group, studying the natural and anthropogenic processes important to the evolution of our planet and that impact the health and sustainability of our communities.

The McKnight Presidential Fellow Award is a three-year award given to exceptional faculty who have recently been considered for tenure and promotion to associate professor, to recognize their excellence in research and scholarship, leadership, potential to build top-tier programs, and ability to advance University of Minnesota priorities. The award consists of a grant to support their academic work over a three-year period.

• Kate Adamala, Genetics, Cell Biology & Development, College of Biological Sciences
• Dana Mowls Carroll, Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health
• Gretchen Hansen, Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource Sciences
• Jacob Jungers, Agronomy and Plant Genetics, College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource Sciences
• Peter Larsen, Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine
• William Leeb, School of Mathematics, College of Science of Engineering
• Terresa A. Moses, Graphic Design, Apparel Design, Retail Merchandising, and Product Design, College of Design
• Hannah Neprash, Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health
• Benjamin Toff, Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication, College of Liberal Arts
  
  Learn more about each of the recipients. 

The President's Award for Outstanding Service is presented each year in the spring and recognizes exceptional service to the University, its schools, colleges, departments, and service units by any active or retired faculty or staff member. The following recipients for this year’s award have gone well beyond their regular duties and have demonstrated an unusual commitment to the University community.

• David R. Brown, professor, Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine
• Philippe Buhlmann, professor, Department of Chemistry, College of Science and Engineering
• Jodi Dworkin, professor, extension specialist, and associate department head, Department of Family Social Science, College of Education and Human Development
• Sara Eliason, graduate program coordinator, Plant and Microbial Biology Graduate Program, College of Biological Sciences
• David Lawrence Feinberg, associate professor emeritus, Department of Art, College of Liberal Arts
• Karen Z. Ho, professor, Department of Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts
• Jerome Knutson, associate professor emeritus, Arts and Sciences, University of Minnesota Crookston
• Jennifer Mencl, associate vice chancellor, Academic Affairs, University of Minnesota Duluth
• Trevor Miller, assistant dean of strategy and advancement, College of Design
• Karen Nichols, associate director, Center for Regional and Tribal Child Welfare Studies, Department of Social Work, College of Education and Human Service Professions, University of Minnesota Duluth
• David Pappone, assistant dean for operations and chief financial officer, College of Science and Engineering
• Carolyn Privet-Chesterman, administrative associate of academic programs, Center for Learning Innovation, University of Minnesota Rochester

Magdalena Wojtczak was awarded a $2,546,399 grant from the NIH for the project “Effects of Age and Hearing Loss on Auditory Temporal Processing: Perceptual and Electrophysiological Measures." The project delves into the realm of auditory temporal processing, aiming to unravel the impacts of age and hearing loss on declines in communication abilities, by using both perceptual and electrophysiological methods. Wojtczak's research explains the nuances of neural tracking of natural speech, offering a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in the processing of speech in noisy backgrounds.

A collaborative project between the University of Minnesota Medical School, School of Public Health and HealthPartners has received a nearly $900,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Human Services, in conjunction with the Opioid Epidemic Response Advisory Council, to enhance workforce development and training for health care professionals caring for persons with opioid use disorder. Set to begin in spring of 2024, the project will evaluate the outcomes of the current medications for opioid use disorder prescription training in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health residency programs. 

Mary Owen is quoted in the MPR News story “U’s Center of American Indian and Minority Health expands to Minneapolis campus;” Matthew Bodie is quoted in a New York Times story about the Supreme Court seeming to side with Starbucks’ challenge to labor ruling; Will Northrop is quoted in an Energy News Network story about a Minnesota startup that wants to convert diesel engines to burn ammonia; Michael Osterholm is quoted in the New York Times story “Fragments of Bird Flu Virus Discovered in Milk;” Neal Godse is interviewed in a WCCO story about spring allergies coming in early and strong; Carlos Schenck is quoted in the CNN story “Sexsomnia: An embarrassing sleep disorder no one wants to talk about;” Joe Armstrong is interviewed in a KSTP story about new federal guidelines seeking to limit the spread of bird flu among dairy cows.

Rachel Hardeman, School of Public Health professor and founding director of the University of Minnesota’s landmark Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity (CARHE), was named a member of the 2024 TIME100. This year’s compilation recognized the world’s 100 most influential personalities and leaders throughout many cross-sections of society, from discovery and research to politics, policy, arts and athletics.

Hardeman's antiracism and community-engaged research has always been grounded in Minnesotan communities. Hardeman was born and raised in Minneapolis, earned her PhD at the U of M School of Public Health, and is a faculty member at the School of Public Health. Hardeman’s current work is anchored in CARHE, which she founded in 2021, the year after she was named the first Blue Cross Endowed Professor of Health and Racial Equity. The intrepid spirit to openly consider how racism impacts health outcomes, particularly for the maternal health of Black Americans, continues to guide CARHE’s work. Its work is made possible by an aspirational philanthropic gift from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.

Lamar Peterson, an associate professor of art in the College of Liberal Arts on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, has been awarded a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Peterson’s selection comes after a rigorous application and peer review process, one in which just 188 individuals were selected from almost 3,000 applicants based on outstanding achievement and exceptional promise.

Peterson was born in Florida and is based in Minnesota. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in drawing and painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. Inspired by elementary school bulletin boards, educational activity books, and crepe paper streamers, Peterson’s graphic portraits depict contemporary African American men and women in quasi-abstract and absurd settings. He evokes issues of race, community, and social and economic upheaval through a candy-coated filter with a darkly comedic effect. 

A new, federally-funded research center collaboration between teams at the U of M and New York University is investigating the use of causal modeling to identify the factors that lead to child maltreatment and its consequences—such as depression, suicidal behavior, or posttraumatic stress—and to identify targeted interventions that can reduce children’s risk for these devastating outcomes.

The Center on Causal Data Science for Child and Adolescent Maltreatment Prevention (CHAMP Center) has received a five-year, $7.6 million P50 grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health. The team at University of Minnesota’s Institute for Health Informatics, led by Sisi Ma and Constantin Aliferis, will apply advanced data science methods to build and test models revealing the children who are most at risk and the causes that most contribute to those risks.