Five faculty members have been selected for 2024 Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Awards in recognition of their exceptional contributions to fostering a culturally and ethnically diverse community at the University of Michigan.
The 2024 recipients are:
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- Paul J. Fleming, associate professor of health behavior and health equity, School of Public Health.
- Gretchen Keppel-Aleks, associate professor of climate and space sciences and engineering, College of Engineering.
- Fiona Lee, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and professor of psychology, LSA.
- Tiffany Ng, associate professor of music, School of Music, Theatre & Dance.
- Deborah Rivas-Drake, Stephanie Johnson Rowley Collegiate Professor of Education, professor of psychology, LSA; and professor of education, Marsal Family School of Education.
The Office of the Provost has bestowed the annual award since 1996 in honor of Harold Johnson, dean emeritus of the School of Social Work. Honorees will be recognized at a ceremony Sept. 5 and receive a $5,000 stipend.
The following recipient profiles were collected from each honoree:
Paul J. Fleming
Fleming is the faculty lead for diversity, equity and inclusion, and principal investigator of the Future Public Health Leaders Program at SPH.
Described by colleagues, students, mentees and community partners as a leader who imagines a better world and works collaboratively to create it, Fleming has made significant contributions to public health practice through teaching, community-based research and mentorship.
He prioritizes community and equity within his research, practice and teaching. His long-standing relationships with community partners, such as the Community Health and Social Services Center — a bilingual health center in southwest Detroit — and the Washtenaw County Health Department, demonstrate his commitment to elevating community-based partnerships to solve public health problems.
Fleming’s commitment to anti-racist public health work demonstrates innovation, community impact and practical application in the field of public health. He collaborated with the Washtenaw County Health Department and community members to co-create a Racial Justice Impact Assessment Tool as part of the Anti-Racist Communities & Counties Project.
Gretchen Keppel-Aleks
Keppel-Aleks
Keppel-Aleks joined U-M in 2013. Her scholarship aims to understand the impacts of global climate change on ecosystems and carbon cycling.
Her research team focuses on advancing the use of remote sensing and atmospheric composition data to develop a predictive understanding of climate feedback and ecosystem health.
Keppel-Aleks strives to mentor a diverse group of students and postdoctoral scholars since climate change will have differential impacts on populations within and across geographies, and diverse perspectives can help define critical needs in Earth system research.
Keppel-Aleks chairs the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, through which she worked with faculty, staff and students to draft policies about the code of conduct, establish procedures to consider equity and inclusion during the hiring process, and improve the onboard experience of transfer students.
She also is the department’s associate chair for education, through which she has conducted curriculum mapping to identify a need for coursework that explicitly addresses how climate scientists can ethically communicate with the public and engage diverse knowledge sources, including traditional knowledge.
Keppel-Aleks participates in the North American Carbon Project, co-chairing the 2021 annual meeting, where a goal was to highlight the voices of Mexican and tribal participants who have traditionally been underrepresented in the research community.
Fiona Lee
Lee served as the inaugural associate dean for professional development and DEI in LSA from 2017-21.
Throughout her career, Lee’s academic teaching, research, leadership and service have demonstrated a sustained, in-depth and intentional focus on issues central to diversity, equity and inclusion. Her research streams and publications involve collaborations with graduate and undergraduate students who are passionate about understanding the psychology of individuals with marginalized social identities.
Her teaching is distinguished by a careful, deliberate and versatile approach to ensuring all students strive in her classroom, a deep integration between her teaching and her scientific study of marginalized social identities, and a significant personal investment in individual mentoring of graduate and undergraduate students.
Lee’s research examines how individuals psychologically manage marginalized racial, ethnic, cultural and gender identities, and how that relates to important individual outcomes. Her work speaks to some of the most critical barriers to DEI in our society.
Some recent examples of her research include an analysis of how campus climate and diversity impact the performance of faculty of color; how stereotypes undermine leadership opportunities of different racial and ethnic minority groups; and how women in male-dominated professions engage in negotiation at work.
Lee was part of the LSA team and was in charge of implementing LSA’s DEI Strategic Plan 1.0.
Tiffany Ng
Ng also is the university carillonist and chair of the Department of Organ in SMTD. She has been featured in concerts and festivals across 17 countries in Europe, Australia, Asia and North America, performed the dedication concert of a newly expanded concert carillon, and taught masterclasses across the U.S.
The leading advocate of diversity in carillon music, she has premiered more than 60 works by composers that include Connor Chee, Sarah Davachi, Yvette Janine Jackson and Wilbert Roget II, and through her commissions and bibliographies significantly increased the diversity of repertoire for solo carillon and carillon with electronics.
She is the editor-in-chief of CarillonWomen.org, the foremost resource on women in carillon history. Her articles appear in Keyboard Perspectives, Journal of Sonic Studies and the GCNA Bulletin, and her music scores are performed across the globe.
Deborah Rivas-Drake
Rivas-Drake works to advance equity and inclusion in K-12 schools, at U-M, and in her field. As a psychologist, she illuminates promising practices that disrupt racism and xenophobia and helps set diverse youth on trajectories of positive contribution to their schools and communities, with more than 100 writings that address ethnic-racial issues in the academic, socioemotional and civic development of racially minoritized adolescents and young adults.
In addition, Rivas-Drake has collaboratively developed strengths-based products focused on youths’ ethnic-racial assets for parents, educators, nonprofit organizations, youth program developers and industry, and she has served as an equity-focused adviser in multiple scientific councils and advisory boards for university and nonprofit entities across the U.S.
Rivas-Drake’s experiences as a Latina first-generation four-year college graduate and full professor committed to enhancing opportunities for scholars who are socially marginalized in the academy guide her work as a mentor to numerous students and faculty with minoritized identities at U-M and beyond.
As associate dean for diversity, inclusion, justice and equity in the Marsal School, Rivas-Drake implements action research, programming and policies that help promote equity and inclusion in the daily lives of U-M faculty, staff and students.
Previously, she was associate director of the U-M ADVANCE Program, where she helped develop research and programming around service equity issues among faculty, especially women of color.
