Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, a lecturer in LSA’s Department of American Culture, was one of 36 winners of the 2019 Knight Arts Challenge Detroit. She was awarded a $25,000 grant for “Beyond Vincent Chin: Legacies in Action and Art,” an anthology of essays by Asian American activists and a digital arts archive that enables Asian American activists, artists and allies to reflect on the landmark Vincent Chin case. The Knight Foundation initiative seeks to find and fund the best ideas for engaging and enriching Detroit through the arts. Additionally, Wang was also recently named a Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights Detroit Equity Action Lab Race and Justice reporting fellow. The fellows each receive mini grants of $1,000 to report on arts and culture in Detroit.
Joseph Himle, associate dean for faculty affairs and Howard V. Brabson Collegiate Professor of Social Work, and Todd Herrenkohl, Marion Elizabeth Blue Professor of Children and Families, were named fellows of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. The AASWSW confers the honor on candidates for their distinguished accomplishments as scholars and practitioners dedicated to achieving excellence in high-impact work that advances social good. Himle and Herrenkohl will be inducted into the academy on Jan. 17, 2020, at the Society for Social Work and Research’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. The AASWSW comprises 129 fellows from more than 38 universities. U-M’s School of Social Work now has 11 academy members.
Huda Akil, co-director and senior research professor of the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute and Gardner Quarton Distinguished University Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry, has been awarded the 2019 Julius Axelrod Prize by the Society for Neuroscience. The award is named for Julius Axelrod, who shared the 1970 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his discoveries on neurotransmitters. It honors researchers who have distinguished achievements in neuropharmacology in addition to exemplary efforts in mentoring young scientists. Akil has made notable contributions to the field of affective neuroscience. She provided the first physiological evidence for the existence and role of endogenous opioids in the brain. Her laboratory, in collaboration with that of Stanley J. Watson, has implicated new genes in the biology of depression. Akil has had a tremendous impact on the future of neuroscience by her efforts in mentoring students and faculty colleagues at various stages of their careers. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
The University of Michigan was recently honored with the E&I National Cloud Leadership Award for its lead role in the development and strategic guidance of the Unizin Data Platform. John Johnston, ITS program manager for analytics and data services, accepted the award on behalf of the university at the annual Educause conference in Chicago. Johnston serves as U-M’s technical liaison to the Unizin consortium. The UDP is a cloud-native, single-tenant architecture data platform that integrates teaching and learning data from across the tool ecosystem and serves it back to universities in a common set of data services. The award is given to the project that most embodies the spirit of innovation, vision and promotion of cloud technologies in national higher education in the United States, according to Keith Fowlkes, vice president for technology at E&I.
— Compiled by Ann Zaniewski, The University Record
