Select Faculty Honors & Accomplishments, December 2013

UConn faculty are receiving recognition nationwide and around the world. Read a selection of recent faculty honors.

UConn faculty are making an impact and receiving recognition nationwide and around the world. Read a selection of their recent honors and accomplishments.

College of Agriculture and Natural Resources

Association of Public and Land-grant Universities logo

Jack Clausen, professor of natural resources and the environment, received the USDA Teaching Award for the Northeast Region at the annual meeting of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU).

Cathleen Love, professor of extension, received the Pharos Award from the Association for Public and Land-grant Colleges’ (APLU) Commission on Access, Diversity, and Excellence for her lifetime contributions to diversity, access, and success.

vaughan williams book

School of Fine Arts

The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams was co-edited by Professor of Music Alain Frogley, and Aidan J. Thomson of Queen’s University, Belfast, and released by Cambridge University Press in November.

Neag School of Education

Morgaen Donaldson, assistant professor of educational leadership, was the sole recipient of the University Council for Educational Administration’s (UCEA) Jack A. Culbertson Outstanding Junior Scholar Award.

Wendy Glenn, associate professor of curriculum and instruction, received the Conference on English (CEE) 2013 Richard A. Meade Award, which recognizes “published research-based work that promotes English Language Arts teacher development at any educational level and in any scope and setting.”

Expert scape logo

William Kraemer, professor of kinesiology, was recently recognized as the #1 expert in resistance training, according to Expertscape, a website listing “specialists demonstrating the greatest expertise in any medical condition or problem.”

Betsy McCoach, associate professor of educational psychology, Kathy Gavin (recently retired from UConn), and Jill Adelson (former UConn doctoral student and now assistant professor at the University of Louisville), won the 2013 Gifted Child Quarterly Research Paper of the Year for “Examining the Effects of Gifted Programming in Mathematics and Reading Using the ECLS-K.”

School of Engineering

The American Physical Society logo

Pamir Alpay, professor and department head of materials science and engineering, was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society for his work on functional/smart materials.

Shengli Zhou, professor of electrical and computer engineering, was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for his contributions to wireless and underwater acoustic communications.

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Kenneth Gouwens, associate professor of history, has been granted a fellowship by the National Endowment for the Humanities for his project “Defining the Human in the Renaissance.”

W. Penn Handwerker, professor of anthropology, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for distinguished scholarly and applied contributions to the field of anthropology, particularly in the areas of demography, human rights, women’s health, and ethnographic research methods. The fellows are recognized by their peers for their efforts to advance science or its applications.

The UConn Department of Philosophy has been ranked among the top four programs in the world for the study of Africana philosophy. The ranking comes as the result of a poll conducted by The Pluralist’s Guide, a website that polls philosophers from across the globe on their peer institutions.

Institute of Materials Science

Arthur McEvily, emeritus professor of metallurgy, has just published the second edition of his book, Metal Failures: Mechanisms, Analysis, and Prevention (Wiley, 2013).

School of Pharmacy

A new course on “Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Medicine” was developed and will be given this spring by Ted Rasmussen and Xiaobo Zhong, associate professors of pharmaceutical sciences. It has about 50 students enrolled, with about half from Pharmacy and half from other STEM disciplines. The course introduces students to these subjects and demonstrates interest in leading-edge genomics study for drug discovery and treatment. It is also an illustration of UConn’s linkages with the Jackson Laboratory.