2010-2011 Awards

Congratulations to the winners of the University’s 2010-2011 Distinguished Teaching Awards, established to recognize faculty who have contributed significantly to the intellectual life of the university through their teaching. This year’s awardees are: Karen Adolph, Professor of Psychology and Neural Science, Faculty of Arts and Science,  Jeane Anastos, Professor of Social Work, Silver School of Social Work, Judith Haber, The Ursula Springer Leadership Professor in Nursing and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, College of Nursing, Jim Hinojosa, Professor, Department of Occupational Therapy, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, Katherine O’Regan, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Wagner School of Public Service, and Joseph Zuckerman, Chairman, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases, School of Medicine.  The work of William Reilly, Associate Professor, Tisch School of the Arts, will be honored with a special posthumous award.

Eight faculty members have been awarded 2011 Guggenheim Fellowships, awarded for demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts:  Dalton Conley, University Professor and Dean for the Social Sciences, FAS, Louis Karchin, professor in the Department of Music, FAS, Peter Lucas, adjunct professor in the Department of Photography & Imaging, TSOA, Kevin McCoy, associate professor in the Department of Art and Art Professions, Steinhardt, Mark Crispin Miller, professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, Steinhardt, Catherine Sharkey, professor in the School of Law, Lara Vapnyar, adjunct professor, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, and Marina Zurkow, associate teacher in the Interactive Telecommunications Program, TSOA.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected six NYU faculty as fellows this year.  The six are among the 212 elected in their class, intended to represent the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation.  This year’s NYU fellows are:  Marsha Berger, Silver Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics, Courant Institute, Marcel Kahan, George T. Lowy Professor of Law, School of Law, Beatrice Longuenesse, Professor of Philosophy, FAS, Geoffrey Miller, Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law, School of Law, David Pearce, Professor of Economics, FAS, and Barbara Weinstein, Professor of History, FAS.

Richard Sennett, University Professor in the Department of Sociology, has won the 2011 Jeanette Schocken Prize for Literature.  Awarded biannually after selection by a jury of journalists and scholars, the Prize is administered and funded by individual contributions from citizens of Bremerhaven, Germany, in honor of Jeanette Schocken, a Jewish citizen killed during the World War II.  Professor Sennett, a renowned social critic, is the author of numerous books.

College of Nursing faculty members Joyce Anastasi and Katherine Hutchinson were honored at the 23rd Annual Scientific Sessions of the Eastern Nursing Research Society in March. Professor Anastasi, Independence Foundation Endowed Professor, received the ENRS 2011 Distinguished Contributions to Nursing Research Award, and Professor Hutchinson, associate professor, received the 2011 Suzanne Feetham Nurse Scientist Family Research Award.

Tara Cortes, Executive Director of the Hartford Institute of Geriatric Nursing at the College of Nursing, has been awarded the Villanova University College of Nursing Medallion for Distinguished Contributions to the Profession. The Medallion honors an alumnus who demonstrates outstanding contributions to and expertise in the field. Professor Cortes is a leader in developing, evaluating, and implementing advanced nursing practice and collaborative practice as well as a globally recognized advocate for the treatment of eye disease.

Richard Epstein, the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at the School of Law, is one of four winners of the 2011 Bradley Prize, given to innovative thinkers and practitioners whose achievements strengthen American democratic capitalism. Professor Epstein, an influential expert in constitutional law, health law and policy, property rights, and torts, will accept the prize, which carries a $250,000 cash award, at a ceremony at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in May.

Darin Strauss, faculty member in the FAS’s Creative Writing Program, has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography for his critically acclaimed Half a Life. Chosen by members of the Critics Circle, comprised of professional book review editors and book reviewers, the annual awards honor the best literature published in English in six categories.

Carol Bove and Trisha Donnelly, both clinical associate professors of studio art at the Steinhardt School, are among the 82 artists from around the world to be featured in the 2011 Venice Biennale, the oldest and most prestigious of the world’s art biennials. The title of the 54th International Art Exhibition, ILLUMInations, draws attention to the importance of disseminating and highlighting current artistic developments in a globalized world.

Marion Nestle, the Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at the Steinhardt School, has been named a “Public Health Hero” for her national leadership in nutrition policy and her work to stem nutritionally based diseases, such as obesity, by the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health. Professor Nestle also garnered recent recognition for her Twitter feed: it was named one of the 140 Twitter feeds “that are shaping the conversation” by Time magazine.

Arthur Miller, University Professor in the School of Law, has been named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.  The CBE, one of the United Kingdom’s highest honors, is an order of chivalry that recognizes civilians and military personnel for public service and other distinctions.  Professor Miller is one of the few Americans to have this Order bestowed upon him. He is recognized for his generous gift of more than eighteen hundred Japanese woodblock prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi to the American Friends of the British Museum as well as for his role moderating public policy discussions on the BBC and Granada Television for more than fifteen years.

Three faculty members have been awarded fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation: Robert Fergus and Jinyang Li, assistant professors of computer science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and Matthieu Wyart, assistant professor in the Department of Physics in the FAS.  Awarded annually, the fellowships are given to early-career scientists and scholars in recognition of achievement and the potential to contribute substantially to their fields. Professor Fergus’ research is in the areas of computer vision, machine learning, and computer graphics.  Professor Li builds and investigates software systems that harness the physical resources of a large number of computers to achieve high-computing capacity.  Professor Wyart explores the properties of systems displaying structural disorder, a kind of randomness that appears in biophysics, neuroscience, material science, soft matter, and the mathematics of sphere packing.

Eric Vanden-Eijnden, professor at the Courant Institute, has been named the winner of the 2011 J.D. Crawford Prize, in recognition of recent outstanding work on a topic in nonlinear science, by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Professor Vanden-Eijnden’s research focus is the development of mathematical tools and numerical methods for the analysis of complex dynamical systems, which range from living organisms to the weather.

Carol Mandel, Dean of the Division of Libraries, has been named the 2011 winner of the Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award by the American Library Association.  The award recognizes an academic librarian who has made significant contributions in the area of library automation or management and who has made notable improvements in library service or research.

Charles Simic (WSC ’67), Distinguished Poet-in-Residence in the Creative Writing Program, has won the Vilcek Prize for the Arts and Humanities in honor of his career achievements. Awarded annually by the Vilcek Foundation, the Vilcek Prizes recognize the contributions of foreign-born scientists and artists in the United States.  Simic, a former United States poet laureate and winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, emigrated from Yugoslavia at age 16.

Robert Teranishi, associate professor of higher education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, has been appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to the Department of Education's Equity and Excellence Commission.  The commission consists of 28 education advocates, civil rights leaders, scholars, lawyers, and corporate leaders who will examine the impact of school finance on educational opportunity and make policy recommendations to increase equity and achievement. Professor Teranishi's research has been influential to federal, state, and institution policy related to college access, campus climate, and college affordability.

Perry Halkitis, professor of applied psychology and associate dean for research and doctoral studies at Steinhardt, has been invited by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to serve on the Advisory Committee on HIV and STD Prevention and Treatment for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Resources and Services Administration.  The Advisory Committee informs both agencies on activities related to HIV/AIDS and STD prevention and control, health care services, and education of health professionals and the public.  Professor Halkitis is director of Steinhardt’s Center for Health, Identity, Behavior, and Prevention Studies.

Joshua Aronson, associate professor of applied psychology at Steinhardt, was named a fellow of the American Psychological Association’s Society for Personality and Social Psychology. The most prestigious society of social psychologists, the Society seeks to advance the progress of theory, basic and applied research, and practice in its field. Professor Aronson's research focuses on racial and gender stereotypes, self-esteem, motivation, and attitudes.

Three faculty members have been named 2010 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.  Bhubaneswar “Bud” Mishra, professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences with a joint appointment in the School of Medicine, was selected for his contributions to the fields of robotics, hardware verification, and computational biology.  Dan Sanes, professor in the Center for Neural Science, was noted for his research in auditory central nervous system development.  Patrick Shrout, professor in the department of psychology, was recognized for his work on the problems of stress, coping, and social support, and for his leadership in professional organizations in psychiatry and psychology.

Joel Oppenheim, professor of microbiology and Senior Associate Dean for Biomedical Sciences at the School of Medicine, has received the 2010 Lifetime Mentor Award by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  The award honors an individual who has demonstrated extraordinary leadership in increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in science and engineering, especially through mentoring doctoral students and influencing the climate of an institution to increase diversity. Professor Oppenheim has been on NYU’s faculty for 37 years.

Four faculty members have been named finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards:  Anne Carson, visiting professor in the Creative Writing Program, for Nox, a collection of poetry and prose created after the death of her brother and integrated with old letters, family photos, collages, and sketches.  Jennifer Homans, Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Faculty of Arts and Science, for Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet. The New York Times Book Review also named Apollo’s Angels one of the “10 Best Books of 2010.”  The first cultural history of ballet ever written, the book chronicles the forces that shaped the art form over more than 400 years.  Susie Linfield, associate professor in the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, for The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence.  In her book, Professor Linfield concludes that publishing and viewing photographs of torture, mutilation, and death is not exploitative but rather constructive.  Darin Strauss, clinical associate professor in the Creative Writing Program, for Half a Life, an autobiographical work that explores the consequences of a high school tragedy.

Assaf Naor, professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, has been awarded the 2011 American Mathematical Society (AMS) Maxime Bôcher Memorial Prize, which recognizes outstanding research in the field of mathematical analysis over a six-year period.  In awarding Professor Naor the prize, which is given every three years, the AMS cited his outstanding work in the area of metric spaces.

A research team from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences has received the George Bell Prize, given to the world’s fastest supercomputing application, for creating software that simulates blood flow. The research team is headed by former Courant post-doctoral fellow George Biros, who began the project with Professor Denis Zorin and doctoral student Lexing Ying, and includes collaborators at Georgia Tech and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  The project, which creates a simulation of 260 million red blood cells flowing in plasma, aims to help scientists develop safer, more effective devices such as stints and heart pumps.

Terry Fulmer, dean of the College of Nursing, was honored as the 2010 Nurse Leader in Aging at the Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity Leadership Conference in November. The American Academy of Nursing and the John A. Hartford Foundation, who give the award, acknowledged Dean Fulmer for “advancing new areas of knowledge” and “improving the quality of life for the aging at risk for abuse and neglect.”

Three College of Nursing faculty members—Wendy Buntin, who also holds a joint faculty appointment at the School of Medicine; Eloise Cathcart; and Ann Kurth—have been inducted into the American Academy of Nursing, which recognizes nursing’s most accomplished leaders. Out of the 108 newly inducted US Fellows, six received their degrees from NYU.

The Humane Society of the United States has recognized “Food, Animals, and the Environment,” a course in FAS’s Environmental Studies Program and Animal Studies Initiative, as a winner of an Animals and Society Distinguished New Course Award. “Food, Animals, and the Environment” is taught by Clinical Assistant Professor Christopher Schlottmann and considers animals’ place in both the food system and the environment.

Terry Fulmer, dean of the College of Nursing, has been elected a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM).  Election to the IOM, which is recognized as an important national resource for independent analysis and recommendations on health issues, is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine.  New members are chosen by current members through a highly selective process that recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health.

Paul Light, Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Service at the Wagner School, has won the American Political Science Association’s 2010 Herbert Simon Award for his book A Government Ill Executed: The Decline of the Federal Service and How to Reverse It.  The award recognizes the best book on public administration published in the last three to five years that has made a significant contribution to public administration.

Several faculty members have recently been named fellows by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) for 2010-2011. ACLS sponsors a variety of fellowships in support of research in the humanities and social sciences. >From NYU, Karl Appuhn, assistant professor of history at FAS, received an ACLS Fellowship to study political and scientific debates surrounding the health of livestock in 18th-century Venice; Mark Sanders, professor of comparative literature at FAS, received an ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowship to study the history of attempts to learn Zulu by non-native speakers in South Africa; Mara Mills, assistant professor of media, culture, and communication at Steinhardt, is collaborating on a study of rhetoric and the microelectronics industry under an ACLS Collaborative Research Fellowship; and Mark Swislocki, assistant professor of history at NYU Abu Dhabi, received an American Research in the Humanities in China Fellowship to study human-animal relations in 19th- and 20th-century China.