Professors Kimberlee Kearfott and Cheryl Moyer will receive the 2018 Sarah Goddard Power Award, and the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s College of Engineering and Computer Science will be recognized with the Rhetaugh G. Dumas Progress in Diversifying Award.
The honors will be presented by the Academic Women’s Caucus during a ceremony that begins at 4 p.m. Wednesday in the Henderson Room of the Michigan League.
Cheryl Moyer
Named after the late U-M regent Sarah Goddard Power, the award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the betterment of women through their leadership, scholarship or other ways in their professional life.
The Rhetaugh G. Dumas Progress in Diversifying Award supports a long-standing vision of increasing the number of diverse women in the academy.
The award, named after late Vice Provost Rhetaugh Dumas, recognizes outstanding institutional initiative in demonstrating notable progress by academic units in achieving ethnic, racial and gender diversity among those pursuing and achieving tenure as professors, clinical professors, research professors and research scientists.
Kearfott is a professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences in the College of Engineering, and professor of radiology in the Medical School. In her nearly 25-year career at U-M, she has started initiatives and created change that has advanced women undergraduates, graduates and faculty.
Among her accomplishments, Kearfott founded the Women in Engineering Office that evolved into the Center for Engineering Diversity & Outreach, drafted U-M’s first policy allowing faculty to voluntarily pause the tenure clock for the birth of a child, and initiated the first networking opportunities for women in engineering, medicine, dentistry, math and the sciences.
Kearfott also has mentored hundreds, authored more than 70 peer-reviewed articles with undergraduate students, and advocated for the Oglala Lakota Tribe on issues involving legacy uranium mining wastes. She has improved the climate for students who identify as minorities, economically disadvantaged, LGBTQ or living with Asperger syndrome.
Moyer is an assistant professor of learning health sciences, and obstetrics and gynecology in the Medical School. She also is an associate director for Global REACH, which was created to help facilitate and promote Medical School international initiatives in research, education and collaborations in health.
Moyer’s work focuses on maternal and neonatal health in sub-Saharan Africa. She mentors undergraduate, master’s, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, and conducts primary research on the social and cultural factors linked to maternal and neonatal outcomes.
With partners in northern Ghana, Moyer co-leads a three-year, United States Agency for International Development-funded project that combines social autopsy, spatial visualization and community engagement to address the social and cultural factors associated with maternal and neonatal deaths or cases involving mothers and babies who almost died.
Moyer participated in the 2016 Lancet Maternal Health Series, co-authoring two of the six papers in the series, and she served on the steering committee of the 2017 Women Leaders in Global Health conference, which was designed to boost the number of women in leadership positions in global health.
The UM-Dearborn College of Engineering and Computer Science has been selected to receive the Dumas Award for Dean Anthony England’s commitment to diversifying the faculty and student population since his arrival in 2012.
