Milestones

The university has awarded 2009 Research Service Grant Awards to Nancy Mithlo, Department of Art History, and Douglas Weibel, Department of Biochemistry.

The Council for Interior Design Accreditation has honored the Design Studies department’s Suzanne Scott with the Keith Hooks Volunteer Excellence Award.

“Consensus and Debate in Salazar’s Portugal,” a new book by Ellen W. Sapega of the Spanish and Portuguese department, was recently published by Penn State University Press.

The renal transplant research team has been awarded a one-year grant for $10,000 for work relating to tissue-measurement techniques developed by the team.

Bruce Beck, senior analyst in the Office of Academic Planning and Analysis, was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the Association of American Universities Data Exchange.

Five individuals are winners of the new Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center (SCRMC) Fellowship Competition for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

An honorary graduate fellowship goes to Nathaniel Pope from Emery Bresnick’s laboratory, pharmacology. Graduate fellowship winners are Hongda Li from Qiang Chang’s laboratory in genetics and Josh Selekman from Sean Palecek’s laboratory in chemical and biological engineering.

The postdoctoral fellowship awardees are Sheeny Lan from William Murphy’s laboratory in biomedical engineering and Fan Wangfrom Aseem Ansari’s laboratory in biochemistry.

The awards, cosponsored by WiCell Research Institute, provide two years of funding for the winners, plus a $10,000 stipend to the laboratory conducting the research.

The Institute for Research in the Humanities has selected the following fellows for the academic year 2009–10:

Resident fellows: Richard Avramenko, political science; Florence Bernault, history; Susan Bernstein, English; Preeti Chopra, languages and cultures of Asia; Mara Loveman, sociology; Claire Wendland, anthropology, obstetrics and gynecology, and medical history and bioethics; and Cherene Sherrard-Johnson, English.

Race, Ethnicity and Indigeneity fellows: Cindy I-Fen Cheng, history and the program in Asian American studies; and Craig Werner, Afro-American studies.

Alexei Samsonov, assistant scientist with the MRI Research Group in the Department of Radiology, received a four-year grant for “Advanced Magnetization Transfer Imaging in Multiple Sclerosis Disease.” The project will develop novel MRI protocol for non-invasive assessment of multiple sclerosis (MS) disease burden. The award totals almost $1.3 million.

Paul Rabinowitz, a professor in the math department, received an honorary degree from Complutense University in Madrid in January.

Chris Boerboom, a professor of agronomy, received the Outstanding Extension Award for an individual exhibiting excellence in weed science extension outreach activities from the Weed Science Society of America.