Editor’s Note: The information for this story includes excerpts from citations provided by the Office of University Development.
Twenty-two faculty members are being formally recognized Wednesday at the University of Michigan Museum of Art for their teaching, scholarship, service and creative activities.
Distinguished University Professorships recognize full professors for exceptional scholarly or creative achievement, national and international reputation, and superior records of teaching, mentoring and service. Created in 1947, each professorship bears a name determined by the appointive professor in consultation with her or his dean. Each professorship also carries an annual salary supplement of $5,000 and an annual research stipend of $5,000. The duration of the appointment is unlimited, and the title may be retained after retirement. In addition, newly appointed Distinguished University Professors are expected to deliver an inaugural lecture. Recipients are:
• Deborah Goldberg, Margaret B. Davis Distinguished University Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, LSA.
• Laura Kasischke, Theodore Roethke Distinguished University Professor of English Language and Literature, professor of English language and literature, and in the Residential College, LSA.
• Steven L. Kunkel, Peter A. Ward Distinguished University Professor of Pathology, Senior Associate Dean for Research; co-director, Division of General Pathology; Endowed Professor of Pathology Research; professor of pathology, Medical School.
• Jeffrey Lagarias, Harold Mead Stark Distinguished University Professor of Mathematics, professor of mathematics, LSA.
• Victor Li, James R. Rice Distinguished University Professor of Engineering, E. Benjamin Wylie Collegiate Professor of Civil Engineering, professor of civil and environmental engineering, of materials science and engineering, and of macromolecular science and engineering, College of Engineering.
Distinguished Faculty Achievement Awards honor senior faculty who consistently have demonstrated outstanding achievements in the areas of scholarly research or creative endeavors, teaching and mentoring of students and junior faculty, service and a variety of other activities. Up to five awards of $2,500 are made each year. Awardees are:
• Todd M. Austin, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, College of Engineering.
• Peter Ho Davies, Charles Baxter Collegiate Professor of English Language and Literature, professor of English language and literature, LSA.
• Bhramar Mukherjee, John D. Kalbfleisch Collegiate Professor of Biostatistics, professor and chair of biostatistics, professor of epidemiology, and of global public health, School of Public Health; research professor, Michigan Institute of Data Science.
• Stephen W. Ragsdale, David Ballou Collegiate Professor and professor of biological chemistry, Medical School.
• Dorceta E. Taylor, James E. Crowfoot Collegiate Professor of Environmental Justice, professor of environmental sociology, School for Environment and Sustainability; professor of Program in the Environment.
The Distinguished Faculty Governance Award was established by the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs in 1986 and is funded by the Alumni Association. The criterion for the award is distinguished service to faculty governance over several years with an emphasis on universitywide service. A $1,500 stipend is presented. Awardee:
• Bruce Maxim, Narasimhamurthi “Nattu” Natarajan Collegiate Professor of Engineering, professor of computer and information science, College of Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan-Dearborn.
Faculty Recognition Awards are intended for mid-career faculty who have demonstrated remarkable contributions to the university through achievements in scholarly research or creative endeavors; excellence as a teacher, adviser and mentor; and distinguished participation in service activities of the university and elsewhere. Eligible candidates include full professors with no more than four years in rank, and tenured associate professors. Five awards of $2,000 each are made. Recipients are:
• Omolola Eniola-Adefeso, professor of chemical engineering, of biomedical engineering and of macromolecular science and engineering, College of Engineering.
• Mary E. Gallagher, Amy and Alan Lowenstein Professor of Democracy, Democratization, and Human Rights, professor of political science; director, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, LSA; research associate professor, Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research.
• Anthony Grbic, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, College of Engineering.
• Stuart Kirsch, professor of anthropology, LSA.
• H. Luke Shaefer, director, Poverty Solutions; associate professor of social work, School of Social Work; associate professor of public policy, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy; faculty associate, Survey Research Center and Population Studies Center, Institute for Social Research.
Research Faculty Recognition Awards honor individuals who hold at least a 60 percent appointment at the rank of research assistant professor, or assistant research scientist. Selection criteria include exceptional scholarly achievements, as evidenced by publications or other scholarly activities in any academic field of study. There is a $1,000 stipend. Awardee:
• Grant Henri Kruger, assistant research scientist, Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering; research investigator, Department of Anesthesiology, Medical School.
Research Faculty Achievement Awards honor individuals who hold at least a 60 percent appointment at the rank of research associate professor, research scientist or associate research scientist. Selection criteria include exceptional scholarly achievements, as evidenced by significant contributions to an academic field of study over time, a specific outstanding discovery or the development of innovative technology or practice. There is a $1,500 stipend. Awardee:
• Carol A.C. Flannagan, research associate professor, U-M Transportation Research Institute.
The Collegiate Research Professorship honors exceptional scholarly achievement and impact on advancing knowledge in science, engineering, health, education, the arts, the humanities or other academic field of study. Research full professors with at least a 60 percent appointment are eligible. The recipient is presented $2,000 per year over five years. Awardee:
• Mousumi Banerjee, Anant M. Kshirsagar Collegiate Research Professor and research professor of biostatistics, School of Public Health.
The Regents’ Award for Distinguished Public Service recognizes public service activities that relate closely to teaching and research, and reflect professional and academic expertise. There is a $1,000 stipend. Awardee:
• Howard Markel, George E. Wantz, M.D. Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine, professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases, and of psychiatry; director, Center for the History of Medicine, Medical School; professor of history, of English language and literature, LSA; and professor of health management and policy, School of Public Health.
The University of Michigan Press Book Award is presented to members of the university teaching and research staff, including emeritus members, whose books have added the greatest distinction to the Press List. Selections are made from books published within a span of two calendar years. The stipend is $1,500. Awardee:
• Arthur Verhoogt, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, professor of papyrology and Greek, LSA; associate dean for academic programs and initiatives, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies.
The University Librarian Achievement Award is presented for exceptional distinction reflected in active and innovative career achievements in library, archival or curatorial services. The recipient will receive a $1,500 stipend. Awardee:
• Philip A. Hallman, information resources specialist senior and librarian, Library Research — Arts and Humanities, University Library.
Distinguished University Professorship
Pioneering plant ecologist Deborah Goldberg elucidates the fundamental processes that control the dynamics, structure and function of ecological communities, including the impacts of anthropogenic drivers such as climate change and invasive species.
Goldberg, who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Barnard College and a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona, joined the U-M faculty in 1983.
Among other contributions, she developed a new paradigm for mechanisms of interactions among plants by distinguishing between effects on and responses to intermediates such as resources, pollinators, herbivores, and microbial symbionts, leading to greater predictability of the outcome of competition.
Her work on the complex linkages between individual response to competition and communitywide consequences of competition has stimulated new approaches to the study of biodiversity. Currently, she is involved in studies developing predictive models of how global change affects coastal ecosystems across the Great Lakes, and of effects of climate change on alpine communities in Norway. Goldberg has published more than 90 articles and co-authored the textbook “Population Ecology: First Principles.”
Goldberg has developed several model programs to increase the number and success of underrepresented young people going into science, technology, engineering and mathematics, including the Michigan Science Academy and the Authentic Research Connection. She also created U-M’s Frontiers Master’s Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology to recruit and prepare underrepresented students for top Ph.D. programs.
Goldberg is a fellow and a past vice president of the Ecological Society of America. She served with distinction as founding chair of U-M’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from 2003-13. Among other honors, she is an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow and a U-M Distinguished Faculty Fellow in Sustainability. She has been recognized with several awards, including U-M’s Distinguished Diversity Leaders Team Award and the Sarah Goddard Power Award.
Distinguished University Professorship
Critically acclaimed poet and fiction writer Laura Kasischke is known for seamlessly weaving naturalistic perspectives, conscious memories and the more fleeting forms of understanding that brush up against the realm of myth into her evocative writings on domestic and family life.
Kasischke earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees from U-M. She joined U-M’s faculty in 2004, where she teaches in the Helen Zell Writers’ Program and Residential College, and directs Undergraduate Creative Writing in the English department.
Kasischke has published 10 collections of poetry, including, “Space, in Chains,” a New York Times Notable Book, and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Rilke Poetry Prize. Other award-winning books of poetry include “Wild Brides,” Elmer Holmes Bobst Award for Emerging Writers; “Housekeeping in a Dream,” Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award; “Fire & Flower,” Beatrice Hawley Award; “Dance and Disappear,” Juniper Prize for Poetry; and “Where Now: New & Selected Poems,” long-listed for the National Book Award.
Her work has been featured in editions of Best American Poetry and received prominent mention in The New York Times, on the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio and throughout Europe. Kasischke has authored 11 books of fiction. Her novels “Suspicious River,” “The Life Before Her Eyes” and “White Bird in a Blizzard” were made into feature-length films. “Mind of Winter” received France’s Prix Elle for best novel of the year.
Kasischke received the LSA Class of 1923 Memorial Teaching Award in 2008, and serves the larger literary community as a judge for major literary competitions. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and U-M’s Institute for the Humanities. Kasischke is a recipient of the University’s Henry Russel Award and Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award.
Distinguished University Professorship
Immunologist Steven Kunkel is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work on inflammation, including seminal studies of cytokines, proteins secreted by immune system cells. Cytokines are key cell-to-cell signaling mechanisms and play a fundamental role in inflammatory diseases. His discoveries have led to innovative treatments to block chronic organ inflammation and fibrosis.
Kunkel earned Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from North Dakota State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. He joined the U-M faculty in 1982.
One of the first to identify, isolate and clone chemokines produced by a non-inflammatory cell, Kunkel demonstrated how immune cells, circulating in blood vessels, find their way to sites of inflammation.
His laboratory was the first to define and use neutralizing antibodies developed against specific cytokines to treat pathological processes. Recently, his group has defined epigenetic pathways that mechanistically contribute to the initiation and maintenance of infectious diseases.
Kunkel has published over 600 journal articles, edited multiple books, and given dozens of keynote addresses at major scientific conferences. He holds 15 patents and is a founding partner of the biotech company Opsidio, which is developing monoclonal antibodies to treat chronic kidney disease and other fibrotic diseases.
Kunkel has served on 40 Ph.D. dissertation committees, trained 50 postdoctoral fellows, and mentored numerous undergraduate and high school students. He also has served on dozens of committees at U-M, National Institutes of Health study sections and review committees, and editorial boards. He currently co-chairs the Board of Scientific Counselors for the NIH National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Among other honors, Kunkel is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Michigan Society of Fellows. He has received several awards, including the American Thoracic Society Recognition for Scientific Accomplishments Award and a NIH Method to Extend Research in Time Award.
Distinguished University Professorship
Analytic and algebraic number theorist Jeffrey Lagarias is renowned for his wide- ranging and influential contributions to pure and applied mathematics. He is an expert on generalizations of the Riemann zeta function, a function of a complex variable that occurs in number theory, and he formulated one of the most elementary versions of a statement equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis.
Lagarias received Bachelor of Science, Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined the U-M faculty in 2004.
Among other contributions, Lagarias extended the theory of compactly supported wavelets, brief oscillations used in signal processing and other applications. He analyzed sigma delta converters, a class of analog-to-digital converters, and established a connection between their algorithms and analytic number theory.
He has done basic work on cryptosystems and developed mathematical models for quasicrystals. He also contributed to theory of interior-point and direct search optimization methods, both widely used in operations research and engineering.
Lagarias has published more than 200 journal and conference papers and given numerous invited presentations, including to the American Mathematical Society and to the Mathematical Association of America, where he was the George Pólya Lecturer. He holds five patents.
Lagarias has advised the undergraduate mathematics club and supervised the work of 13 doctoral students. He has served on numerous mathematics department committees, and is a member of five editorial boards and multiple National Science Foundation and other review panels.
Lagarias is a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Mathematical Society, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. He received the Mathematical Association of America Lester R. Ford Award for outstanding expository papers twice and was awarded the AMS Levi L. Conant Prize for best expository paper. He also is a recipient of a 2018 Simons Foundation fellowship in mathematics.
Distinguished University Professorship
Civil engineer and materials scientist Victor Li designs smart, fiber-reinforced cementitious composites for sustainable built environments. Known as bendable concrete, engineered cementitious composite is stronger and more durable than regular concrete, and could be key to revitalizing America’s infrastructure.
Li, who directs the U-M Advanced Civil Engineering Materials Research Laboratory, earned Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Arts, Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees at Brown University. He joined U-M’s faculty in 1990.
Li deciphered the underlying cause of concrete’s brittleness and re-engineered it into a material with tensile ductility 500 times that of the original. Li also designed a concrete that can sense and heal its own cracks using ambient moisture. He has published more than 200 articles and holds 12 patents. His research has spawned a burgeoning industry in Asia, Europe and the United States.
A 2017 Golden Apple Award nominee and recipient of the Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award, Li has advised 30 doctoral students and supervised more than 35 postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars. He co-founded a new master’s concentration on infrastructure systems in the College of Engineering, and helped design courses for the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning’s master’s program in materials science.
Li is a past-president of the International Association of Fracture Mechanics of Concrete and Concrete Structures, and a member of the National Institute of Building Sciences’ Advanced Materials Council, the Michigan Transportation Research Board executive committee, and the International Union of Laboratories and Experts in Construction Materials, Systems, and Structures, which honored him with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
He also is a fellow of the American Concrete Institute, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the World Innovation Foundation. In 2016, the Construction Industry Council presented him its International Grand Prize for Innovation.
Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award
Computer architect Todd Austin’s pioneering system modeling technologies, including the SimpleScalar tool set, have advanced computer performance and efficiency and accelerated low-power digital design in academia and industry. He currently is working on new verification techniques to mitigate hardware security vulnerabilities.
Prior to joining the U-M faculty in 1999, Austin earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master of Science degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from UW-Madison.
Austin developed Dynamic Implementation Verification Architecture, which has features that allow it to tolerate faults, including its own design bugs. His work won best paper honors at the 1999 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers MICRO conference. He also contributed to Razor, which allows digital designs to set the minimal energy state necessary to compute.
In 2007, he won the Association for Computing Machinery Maurice Wilkes Award for SimpleScalar, DIVA, and Razor, among other contributions. Austin was director of the Center for Future Architectures Research, a $30 million multi-university Semiconductor Research Corporation/Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-funded center, from 2012-17. He has published 100 articles and conference papers and holds 24 patents.
Since 2009, Austin has worked with the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology in Ethiopia to develop courses, programs and labs, including one devoted to robotics to support Ethiopia’s manufacturing sector. He also co-created a program that sends senior U-M doctoral students to Ethiopia to mentor AAiT students.
Austin is a member of the College of Engineering Center for Entrepreneurship Advisory Committee and has served on the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies executive board, as well as a referee and reviewer for multiple journals and the National Science Foundation. He is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers fellow and has been recognized with several awards, including a NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program Award and U-M’s Henry Russel Award.
Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award
Peter Ho Davies, novelist and winner of the 2008 PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the art of the short story, is an accomplished artist, teacher, and mentor of creative writing students at U-M and at writing conferences throughout the United States and internationally.
The son of Chinese and Welsh parents, Davies received a Bachelor of Science degree from Manchester University, a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cambridge University and a Master of Arts degree from Boston University. He joined U-M’s faculty in 1999.
Davies’ stories have been widely anthologized, and his first collection, “The Ugliest House in the World: Stories,” won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and PEN/Macmillan Silver PEN Award. His second short story collection, “Equal Love: Stories,” was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Davies has written two novels, “The Welsh Girl,” a (London) Times bestseller longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and “The Fortunes,” which focuses on the Chinese-American experience over several generations. “The Fortunes” won the Chautauqua Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Award, recognizing books that have made an important contribution to understanding racism and diversity. Davies’ work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Granta and The Guardian, among others.
Noted for his Very Contemporary Novel class and other popular courses, Davies directed U-M’s Helen Zell Writers Program from 2003-06 and the Hopwood Awards Program in 2015-16. He has assisted scores of emerging writers achieve literary success, including U-M alumna Jesmyn Ward and Nigerian novelist Chigozie Obioma.
Davies has received several honors, including the Rackham Master’s Mentoring Award, the Institute for the Humanities John Rich Fellowship, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowships.
Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award
Biostatistician and population health expert Bhramar Mukherjee uses Bayesian and other statistical methods to solve complex problems at the interface of genetics and environmental epidemiology. She was the first to report the risk of pancreatic cancer in Lynch syndrome patients and non-melanoma cancers in tumor protein p53 mutation carriers, among other discoveries.
Mukherjee earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Presidency University, a Master of Statistics degree from the Indian Statistical Institute and a Master of Science degree and Ph.D. from Purdue University. She joined the U-M faculty in 2006. Mukherjee is associate director for cancer control and population sciences at Michigan Medicine’s Rogel Cancer Center and a core faculty member at the Michigan Institute for Data Science.
Mukherjee has published 190 papers and has made substantial contributions to the theoretical and practical development of novel methods for understanding gene-environment interaction. She uses data science and information technology to reduce health disparities in underserved communities. Mukherjee launched a maternal and child health study in rural West Bengal to assess the feasibility of using community health workers to provide routine health care during pregnancy and early childhood.
Mukherjee is founding director of U-M’s Undergraduate Summer Institute in Biostatistics: Transforming Analytical Learning in the Era of Big Data, and received the School of Public Health Excellence in Teaching Award in 2012.
Mukherjee chairs the Committee of Presidents for Statistical Societies and is active in the American Statistical Association. She also is a member of the National Institute of Statistical Sciences Board of Trustees and the National Institute of Environmental Health Services Environmental Health Sciences Review Committee.
A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Statistical Association, and the Michigan Society of Fellows, Mukherjee has received several honors, including the Washington Statistical Society Gertrude Cox Award and U-M’s Elizabeth Caroline Crosby Research Award.
Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award
Biochemist Stephen Ragsdale has enlarged our understanding of the global carbon cycle significantly with his research on complex metalloenzymes, which are key to methane formation and carbon dioxide fixation. Balancing the levels of these gases is important because their overabundance exacerbates global warming.
Ragsdale earned a Bachelor of Science degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. He joined the U-M faculty in 2007.
Among other discoveries, Ragsdale identified catalytically active intermediates in methanogenesis, which is responsible for more than 90 percent of all methane in Earth’s atmosphere. His group also identified the intermediates involved in a major pathway for conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide into cell biomass. They also described how mammals coordinate various cellular signals to regulate circadian rhythms and metabolism.
Ragsdale has published more than 250 papers in Nature, Science and other journals. The National Institutes of Health and U.S. Department of Energy have continuously supported his research for three decades.
Ragsdale brings energy and enthusiasm to the classroom, his lab and the larger community, where he organized a public symposium and performance on global warming and taught science at a local youth shelter. He received U-M’s Endowment for Basic Sciences Teaching Award in Biological Chemistry in 2014. Ragsdale, who chaired the Gordon Conference on Molecular Basis of Microbial One-Carbon Metabolism and the Microbial Physiology Section of the American Society for Microbiology, serves on several editorial boards. He also co-directs U-M’s Chemical Biology Interface Training program.
The industrially important anaerobic bacterium Clostridium ragsdalei is named in Ragsdale’s honor. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology, and a member of U-M’s League of Research Excellence and League of Educational Excellence. He received an NIH Merit Award, among other honors.
Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award
Environmental sociologist Dorceta E. Taylor is one of the world’s foremost scholars on environmental, labor and social movements. She has deepened the conceptual foundations for understanding environmental justice by examining class and gender dimensions of environmentalism and documenting contributions by people of color to conservation and ecology.
Taylor, a U-M faculty member since 1993, helped launch the nation’s first environmental justice program at the School for Environment and Sustainability. She was the first black woman to receive a Ph.D. from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. She also earned a joint doctorate in sociology and three master’s degrees at Yale.
Taylor broadened the study of the environmental movement beyond wilderness parks, and quantified employment patterns in environmental institutions. She concluded that minorities are dramatically underrepresented in the profession, a finding that prompted more environmental organizations to report their diversity data.
She has authored numerous articles, reports and four books, including “Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility,” and “The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change,” which won the American Sociological Association Allan Schnaiberg Outstanding Publication Award.
Taylor is director of diversity, equity and inclusion at SEAS. She launched the Multicultural Environment Leadership Development Initiative used by universities and nongovernmental organizations to recruit minority environmental justice researchers and professionals. She also created the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program for undergraduate students and the Environmental Fellows Program, which places graduate students in well-paid internships at environmental NGOs and government agencies.
She has received several awards, including the National Audubon Society’s 2018 Rachel Carson Women in Conservation Award, the Center for the Education of Women’s Carol Hollenshead Award for Excellence in Promoting Equity and Social Change and the American Sociological Association Fred Buttel Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Environmental Sociology Award.
Distinguished Faculty Governance Award
Bruce Maxim, chair of the UM-Dearborn Faculty Senate, has provided strong leadership in support of faculty governance for more than three decades, including four terms as a Faculty Senate member. He also has contributed significantly to UM-Dearborn’s computing environment, experiential learning, student organizations, cooperative education and community outreach.
Maxim earned a Bachelor of Science in Education degree, a Master of Arts degree and a Ph.D. from U-M. He joined the UM-Dearborn faculty in 1985.
Maxim worked with the Senate Assembly to establish permanent representation of UM-Dearborn and UM-Flint on the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs. He also chaired a UM-Dearborn Faculty Senate committee that worked with the Office of the Vice President and General Counsel to modify Dearborn’s faculty grievance procedures so they conform to procedures recommended by SACUA.
In addition to serving three terms as vice chair of the Faculty Senate, Maxim has chaired UM-Dearborn’s Campus Promotion and Tenure Committee, Faculty Grievance Procedure Revision Committee, Administrative Data Processing Advisory Committee, and Campus Computing Advisory Committee.
He is a member of the College of Engineering and Computer Science Experiential Learning Committee, the UM-Dearborn Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, and oversees the Department of Computer and Information Science computing facilities at UM-Dearborn.
He has supervised more than 280 community-based student software development projects since 1997. He has organized meetings of the Detroit Chapter of the International Game Developers Association and helped shape Association for Computing Machinery/Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers curricula for computer science, software engineering, and game development programs.
Maxim has received several awards, including the State of Michigan Teaching Excellence Award, the Dearborn Campus Distinguished Teaching Award and the Michigan Association of Governing Boards of Universities Distinguished Faculty Award.
Faculty Recognition Award
Chemical engineer Omolola Eniola-Adefeso, a nationally recognized expert on vascular-targeting drug delivery, is working on a less invasive way to treat heart disease through development of artificial white blood cells that deliver medicines to vessels near the heart.
Eniola-Adefeso earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a Master of Science in Engineering degree and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the U-M faculty in 2006.
Eniola-Adefeso’s research team is developing hollow, biodegradable plastic beads that can be filled with medicine and injected into a vein, travel to a destination, and slowly release the drug. She discovered parameters dictating how particles adhere to a reactive surface and the magnitude of forces exerted by blood flow, and foresees artificial white blood cells being used to treat injuries and infections as well as heart disease.
Eniola-Adefeso has written 88 papers and conference presentations and has secured multiple grants from the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health.
Besides chairing or co-chairing 15 doctoral committees, she has mentored more than 30 undergraduate students. She won the Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prize for her “each one teach one” concept, in which undergraduate teams design experiments to introduce basic engineering concepts to K-12 students.
Eniola-Adefeso has promoted diversity, equity and inclusion, including launching a peer mentor program where third-year doctoral students mentor diverse groups of first-year students. She chairs the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Minority Faculty Forum and has served on the planning committee for the Big Ten Women’s Workshop for junior women faculty members.
She is a fellow of the American Institute for Biological and Medical Engineering and the Michigan Society of Fellows. She has received several honors, including the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award and U-M’s Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award.
Faculty Recognition Award
Political scientist Mary Gallagher is an internationally recognized scholar of law, labor and workforce issues in contemporary China. She has directed U-M’s Kenneth G. Lieberthal and Richard H. Rogel Center for Chinese Studies since 2008.
Gallagher, who joined U-M’s faculty in 2000, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Smith College and a Master of Arts degree and Ph.D. from Princeton University.
Combining fieldwork, surveys and interviews, Gallagher researches authoritarian politics, including how autocratic regimes transform to survive.
In her book “Authoritarian Legality: Law, Workers, and the State in Contemporary China,” she notes the Chinese government has enacted some of the world’s most protective workplace laws and allows for adjudication of conflicts. While highly educated employees tend to claim their rights, less educated workers often are disillusioned with the gap between China’s labor laws and reality and more inclined to protest, which could undermine its authoritarian rule.
She also wrote “Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China.” Her articles have appeared in several journals, including World Politics and Law and Society Review.
Gallagher has served on thesis committees for 50 M.A. and Ph.D. students, regularly mentors undergraduates and hosts an informal China reading group for students.
Gallagher served on Apple’s Academic Advisory Board, has testified before Congress about working conditions in China. She has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the Department of State and the Congressional Executive Commission on China.
Gallagher is a member of four journal editorial boards and the University of Michigan Press executive committee, and has served on the President’s Advisory Committee on Labor Standards and Human Rights and as special counsel to the provost on China. She received an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Outstanding Research Mentor Award and a LSA Excellence in Education Award.
Faculty Recognition Award
Electromagnetic researcher Anthony Grbic is a world leader in the development of metamaterials and metasurfaces — artificial materials and surfaces with electromagnetic properties beyond those found in nature. His pioneering work has led to ultra-thin optical devices with revolutionary capabilities and to development of new opportunities in the miniaturization of antennas and other applications that require minute optical elements, including labs-on-a-chip, ultra-thin cameras, and biomedical optics.
Grbic, a U-M faculty member since 2006, earned a Bachelor of Applied Science degree, a Master of Applied Science degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.
The first to create a metamaterial superlens that surpassed the resolution limitations of conventional lenses, Grbic also helped develop circuit-based metamaterials resulting in transformative electromagnetic devices. He co-invented near-field plates, surfaces that can confine electromagnetic energy to extreme subwavelength resolutions, an innovation expected to lead to lithographic systems with unparalleled resolution and improvements in wireless power transfer systems’ range and efficiency.
He was the first to create high efficiency, reflectionless metasurfaces, and introduced a pragmatic approach to developing bianisotropic metasurfaces, which could lead to antenna systems that could replace dishes and reflector-based systems.
Grbic has published 81 journal papers and 107 conference papers.
Grbic currently advises nine graduate students, has graduated six Ph.D. students and advised eight master’s students, and has mentored more than 20 students through the Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.
He served on the National Science Foundation Center for Photonics and Multiscale Nanomaterials executive committee and was a plenary speaker at the International Congress on Advanced Electromagnetic Materials in Microwaves and Optics (Metamaterials Conference).
Grbic is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers fellow. He is also the recipient of several awards, including a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award and a Henry Russel Award.
Faculty Recognition Award
Sociocultural anthropologist Stuart Kirsch (no photo available) is renowned for his scholarship on indigenous politics and the environment. He offers an expanded model of engaged anthropology, in which ethnographers partner with the communities they research to resist powerful globalizing forces that threaten the environment and indigenous ways of life.
Kirsch, who joined the U-M faculty in 1995, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from George Washington University and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He started working with the Yonggom people of Papua, New Guinea in 1986.
The Yonggom asked Kirsch for help when pollution from an open-pit copper and gold mine decimated local rivers and the rainforest. Kirsch examines Yonggom understandings of the Ok Tedi mine and the harm it caused, as well as their perspectives on political ecology in his book, “Reverse Anthropology: Indigenous Analysis of Social and Environmental Relations in New Guinea.”
He follows up on the Yonggom lawsuit against the mining company with insights on the corporation as a distinctive social form in his second book, “Mining Capitalism: The Relationship between Corporations and Their Critics.” Kirsch’s most recent book, “Engaged Anthropology: Politics Beyond the Text,” argues that anthropology can and should be involved with the world’s problems.
Kirsch has published 17 journal articles, 15 book chapters, and 11 social impact studies and reports for nongovernmental organizations. He has received multiple awards from U-M, including a Michigan Humanities Award, as well as external grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright-Hays Program, the National Science Foundation and the Royal Anthropological Institute.
Kirsch has taught 20 different courses at U-M. He has served on multiple departmental committees and as a member of U-M’s Institutional Review Board. Kirsch also sits on editorial boards, reviews grant proposals and collaborates with indigenous communities and international NGOs as a consultant, expert witness, and scholar.
Faculty Recognition Award
H. Luke Shaefer, a poverty and social welfare policy expert, is a leading scholar on the United States’ social safety net, low-wage workers and the economically disadvantaged. He has presented innovative strategies to alleviate poverty to the White House, before the Senate Finance Committee, and to social service providers and federal agencies.
He also co-authored, “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America,” which has changed the national conversation about extreme poverty and welfare reform.
Shaefer joined the U-M faculty in 2008 after earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin College and a Master of Arts degree and Ph.D. in social service administration from the University of Chicago. He is founding director of U-M’s Poverty Solutions initiative, launched in 2016 to alleviate poverty by expanding economic opportunity, reducing educational disparities and addressing the health consequences of poverty.
Shaefer discovered that as of 2011, an estimated 1.5 million U.S. households with roughly 3 million children were reporting periods with cash incomes of less than $2 per person, per day. He and co-author Kathryn Edin combined qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the rise of extreme poverty following 1996 welfare reform. “$2.00 a Day” won the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, and was named one of 100 Notable Books by The New York Times Book Review.
Shaefer, who was recognized as the School of Social Work Student Union Professor of the Year in 2013, has led workshops for U-M students and faculty members on working with U.S. Census Bureau Survey of Income and Program Participation data. He served on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and National Research Council panel that reviewed the 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation.
He received the Deborah K. Padgett Early Career Achievement Award from the Society for Social Work and Research, and was named a leader under 40 in the field of social insurance by the National Academy of Social Insurance.
Research Faculty Recognition Award
Grant Kruger focuses on smart health, the methodical study of mobile and other state-of-the-art technologies and how they can enable improved healthcare. He strives to improve outcomes for patients struggling with debilitating illnesses. To ensure that mature technologies reach patients, Kruger encourages entrepreneurship and actively supports technology transfer. He is co-founder of two startup companies, Arbor Medical Innovations and Rhythm Solutions.
Kruger received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and intelligent manufacturing systems from Nelson Mandela University. He joined the U-M faculty in 2008.
One of Kruger’s more significant contributions has been his role in the Department of Anesthesiology’s advancement of quantitative sensory testing science to support the study of urologic chronic pelvic pain syndrome. Kruger helped develop and patent a specialized medical device to evaluate patients suffering from UCPPS. The device was used in a 1,000-subject study and has provided valuable insight into this condition. Kruger’s company has licensed this technology and continues to advance and distribute it. More than 4,000 subjects have undergone testing to support pain research, drug development, and guide interventions for chronic pain, resulting in numerous journal publications.
In similar collaboration with Kevin Tremper, anesthesiology department chair, Kruger translated his graduate work in manufacturing to create a platform-independent, distributed clinical decision support system. The system employs sensor fusion to reduce intra-operative risk through real-time graphical visualization of pre-existing conditions, potential risk factors and current physiologic state. The patented system is being used in several hospitals.
Kruger is also working with emergency medicine physicians on wearable ultrasound sensors for physiologic monitoring and with cardiologists on cloud-based mobile health data analytics, cardiac state classification, and intracardiac robotic interventions.
Kruger is active in the Biomedical Engineering Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Among other accolades, he received the Institute of Professional Engineering Technologist Award for Academic Excellence.
Research Faculty Achievement Award
Transportation researcher Carol Flannagan is internationally renowned for her pioneering work on statistical methods and analyses using vehicle safety and driving behavior data with applications in ergonomics, injury biomechanics, human behavior, effectiveness of advanced safety systems and public health.
Director of the Center for Management of Information for Safe and Sustainable Transportation at the U-M Transportation Research Institute since 2012, Flannagan earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Lawrence University, as well as Master of Arts degrees in applied statistics and psychology and her Ph.D. from U-M. She joined U-M’s faculty in 1995.
Flannagan developed the Unified Theory Mapping Opportunities for Safety Technology model, used to examine various approaches to automotive safety, including active and passive vehicle-based systems, laws and enforcement, and roadway improvements.
She led an international team study comparing injury risk in U.S. and European Union-regulated vehicles and is collaborating with the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, General Motors, and OnStar to analyze big data to assess driver response to multiple safety systems.
Her work in public health includes safety benefits of motorcycle helmet laws, primary seat belt laws and alcohol interlocks. She has published 65 articles and 34 technical reports, and has served as principal investigator on more than 30 research projects totaling over $7 million.
As UMTRI’s interim director in 2015–16, she focused on and improved gender equity at the institute. She serves on the UMTRI Executive Committee, is a core faculty member in the Michigan Institute for Data Science and leads the statistics core for U-M’s Injury Prevention Center.
Flannagan is a member of Gov. Rick Snyder’s Impaired Driving Safety Commission and is active in the National Research Council’s Transportation Research Board. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration presented her its Lifesaver’s Public Service Award in 2017.
Collegiate Research Professorship
Biostatistics professor Mousumi Banerjee has made significant contributions to statistical methodology in the areas of machine learning, correlated data, survival analysis and competing risks. She also is a highly respected team scientist who collaborates with multiple clinical research groups to improve human health.
Banerjee earned a Bachelor of Statistics degree and a master’s degree in statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta, and her Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She joined the U-M faculty in 2003.
Banerjee addresses fundamental issues related to disease prognostication, particularly for cancer and cardiovascular diseases, as well as optimal quality and equitable care delivery for cancer and pediatric cardiac surgery patients, and disparities in health care outcomes.
She has published more than 159 articles in leading statistical, biomedical, and health journals and has been a principal investigator or co-investigator on 44 grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
She is director of biostatistics for U-M’s Center for Healthcare Outcomes & Policy within the Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation and leads the analytic core for Michigan Medicine’s Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium.
Banerjee has trained many scientists in biostatistical methods and mentored graduate students, resident physicians and postdoctoral fellows. As chair of the Office of Global Public Health’s South Asia Interest Group, she has fostered research and educational partnerships with institutions in Bangladesh and India.
Banerjee is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and has served on study sections and review panels for NIH and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and on various committees of the ASA and the International Statistical Institute. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Michigan has recognized her with its McDevitt Excellence in Research Award on three occasions.
Regents’ Award for Distinguished Public Service
Medical historian Howard Markel has devoted his career to protecting the world against deadly pandemics. Co-editor of “The 1918-1919 American Influenza Pandemic: A Digital Encyclopedia and Archive,” he has consulted widely with health departments, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization on pandemic influenza preparedness and Ebola virus management.
Markel earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and his medical degree from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He joined the U-M faculty in 1993.
Markel’s extensive oeuvre includes “The Practical Pediatrician: The A-Z Guide to Your Child’s Health, Behavior, and Safety,” a Child magazine Book of the Year, and “When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America and the Fears They Have Unleashed.”
His “An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine” was a New York Times bestseller and The New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. His latest book, “The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek,” was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for biography.
Markel has published more than 500 articles in scholarly and popular publications, and has consulted at U.S. government agencies and the White House.
In 2008, Markel was elected into the National Academy of Medicine, and serves on its Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice. He has edited the U-M Press Conversations in Medicine and Society series and has served on the Physicians and Lawyers for National Drug Policy National Leadership Council.
Among other honors, Markel was elected to the American Epidemiological Society and the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars, and is a Michigan Society of Fellows senior fellow. He has been recognized with several awards, including the National Institutes of Health James A. Shannon Director’s Award.
University of Michigan Press Book Award
In “Discarded, Discovered, Collected, The University of Michigan Papyrus Collection,” author and classics scholar Arthur Verhoogt presents an informative and engaging introduction to U-M’s famed collection of papyri and related ancient materials. The collection, founded in the early part of the 20th century by Francis W. Kelsey, is the largest research and teaching collection of its kind in North America.
Verhoogt earned a Master of Arts degree and Ph.D. from the University of Leiden, Netherlands, in 1990 and 1997, respectively. He joined U-M’s faculty in 2001.
In “Discovered, Discarded, Collected,” Verhoogt explains the evolution of U-M’s collection, which contains more than 12,000 papyri and hundreds of texts on potsherds, wood, wax tablets, parchment and lead, dating from 1000 BCE to 1000 CE.
The collection contains public and private documents such as imperial decrees, administrative and taxation records, letters, accounts, and wills and marriage agreements, as well as fragments of works by Homer and other classical authors, scientific writings and Christian texts.
In addition to explaining how papyri contribute to our understanding of the Greco-Roman world, Verhoogt includes translations of ancient texts, giving readers the opportunity to read centuries-old documents.
His other publications include “Menches, Komogrammateus of Kerkeosiris: The Doings and Dealings of a Village Scribe in the Late Ptolemaic Period (120-110 BC)” and “Regaling Officials in Ptolemaic Egypt: A Dramatic Reading of Official Accounts from the Menches Papers.”
He has been recognized with an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship and as a Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study Fellow-in-Residence.
Verhoogt, a recipient of the Michigan Humanities Award, LSA Excellence in Education Award and John Dewey Award, is known for his pedagogical creativity and the academic rigor of his highly rated courses, including first-year seminars and larger courses such as Greek Mythology.
University Librarian Achievement Award
Philip A. Hallman is the film studies field librarian for the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library, head of the Department of Film, Television, and Media’s Donald Hall Collection and curator for the Special Collections Research Center’s Screen Arts Mavericks & Makers Collection. He is renowned for his subject expertise that spans all areas of film history and for building extraordinary collections used by researchers worldwide.
Hallman, who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Information and Library Studies degree from U-M, and a Master of Arts degree from New York University, joined U-M’s faculty in 1999. Under his leadership, the Donald Hall Collection, which includes an acclaimed screenplay and film print collection, has become one of the largest university DVD feature film resources in the nation.
Besides expanding the Orson Welles and Robert Altman archives, Hallman has been instrumental in U-M’s acquisition of papers of other outstanding filmmakers, including directors Jonathan Demme and Alan Rudolph. Each year he coordinates a symposium and exhibition dedicated to one of the filmmakers.
As library liaison, Hallman participates in film, television and media department committees and curriculum discussions, and has inspired new courses. He and students have co-curated exhibitions from the Mavericks Collection.
Hallman conducts original research on film exhibition, particularly drive-in theaters, and has received funding to support his work, including an MCubed grant to research and map Detroit’s cinemas. He is building a database that will document Detroit’s film exhibition history throughout the 20th century.
Hallman initiated Critical M.A.S.S. (Michigan Alliance of Screen Studies), a regional consortium of scholars working in film and media, and has presented papers at various conferences, including the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and the SXSW Film Festival. He programmed Michigan’s Projectorhead film series and regularly serves as moderator or juror for festivals, including Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival.
