Meet the winners of the 2026 Hilldale Awards

Each year, to recognize their contributions to teaching, research and service, the faculty divisions honor four University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty members with the Hilldale Award.

Faculty members representing the arts and humanities, biological sciences, physical sciences and social sciences are selected from nominations submitted by department chairs. The winners will be recognized at the April 6 Faculty Senate meeting.

This year’s Hilldale Award winners are Mimmi Fulmer, Ellen Wald, Miron Livny and Jon Pevehouse.

Mimmi Fulmer, arts and humanities

Both a trained vocal performer and instructor, Mimmi Fulmer is an artist-scholar of Nordic music who has been part of the campus community for more than 40 years. Through her own research and vocal recordings, she has consistently shaped vocal performance and pedagogy, advanced Nordic song scholarship and elevated UW–Madison’s reputation nationally and internationally. Fulmer edited a three-volume anthology of 53 Nordic songs titled Midnight Sun, providing the first comprehensive resource for American singers and filling a critical gap in vocal pedagogy. Now widely adopted by university voice studios, it is considered a landmark publication and has been archived by the National Library of Finland.

Fulmer teaches a range of courses from multi-language diction and Opera Workshop to performance practice, all of which are designed to prepare students for careers in opera, recital and academic settings. Her leadership has brought irreplaceable campus opportunities for experiential learning, as seen through the University Opera program where she coaches and stages scenes, coordinates outreach and advises production planning. Fulmer has also organized outreach programs that bring opera scenes, master classes and audition workshops to schools across Wisconsin.

Ellen Wald, biological sciences

Ellen Wald is an internationally renowned pediatric physician-scientist whose research has benefited many areas of pediatric infectious disease, improving the overall respiratory health of children globally. Her original research on hearing loss in bacterial meningitis provided important insights that helped inform therapy. Wald’s landmark research on childhood sinusitis is so critical that her name is now virtually synonymous with the study of the disease, and her work has provided a template for current treatment guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics and Infectious Disease Society.

Wald served as chair for the Department of Pediatrics for 17 years, the first woman to chair a department in the School of Medicine and Public Health. By prioritizing a sense of camaraderie and focusing on personal connection between faculty members as well as scholarly accomplishments, her leadership more than doubled the number of faculty in the department and tripled research funding. Wald is a compassionate teacher who values mentorship as one of the most vital functions of education. She continues to research, mentor and develop educational materials for residents and fellows.

Miron Livny, physical sciences

Over 40 years ago, Miron Livny launched Condor, a landmark distributed computing framework that pioneered the field of high throughput computing (HTC). His research addresses fundamental challenges, enabling his team to build an international cyberinfrastructure that harnesses the power of distributed computing capacity to serve demanding computational workloads. User experience has been a key driver for his translational approach to research, working to ensure that the HTCondor Software Suite is scalable and dependable for operators and users. Livny consistently engages with ambitious but under-resourced researchers to identify how HTC can transform their work, often remaining actively involved to maximize lasting impact on their science.

HTCondor serves as the computing backbone for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and supported three Nobel-Prize awards — the 2012 Higgs boson the 2017 detection of gravitational waves and the 2024 protein design. HTCondor components have been deployed across more than 100 United States universities and by Federal Agencies and commercial entities. Throughout his career, Livny has invested in mentorship and education through course instruction, student advisement, student fellowships and hosting an annual conference that attracts hundreds of researchers, students and practitioners from around the world.

Jon Pevehouse, social sciences

Jon Pevehouse’s contributions as a scholar have significantly advanced the fields of foreign policy analysis and international political economy. He researches the interaction of international organizations and domestic political institutions as well as how political narratives move across media platforms. Pevehouse’s most recent research examines how rising nationalism, populism and democratic backsliding around the world influences the functioning international organizations and the making of trade policy.

Pevehouse has developed and taught 13 courses in both international relations and political methodology, ranging from large introductory undergraduate courses to specialized graduate training seminars. Whether he is advising undergraduates as they complete their honors theses or chairing doctoral dissertation committees, Pevehouse is committed to student mentorship. He also coauthored the leading textbook on international relations. Pevehouse regularly engages his scholarship with current events, providing expertise to public-facing lectures and news outlets. During his time as chair of the Department of Political Science, he led successful hiring efforts that diversified faculty scholarship and improved support for graduate and undergraduate students. His dedicated leadership elevated the department’s standing among Big Ten schools.