Fall honors and awards

Laura DeMarco

Laura DeMarco, professor of mathematics in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded the 2017 American Mathematical Society (AMS) Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics. Awarded every two years, the AMS Satter Prize “recognizes an outstanding contribution to mathematics research by a woman in the previous six years,” the society said. DeMarco is being honored “for her fundamental contributions to complex dynamics, potential theory and the emerging field of arithmetic dynamics,” the society said. DeMarco’s work focuses on dynamical systems, a branch of mathematics that studies systems that change, such as weather-pattern models. She has pioneered groundbreaking new ideas into dynamical systems by implementing tools from other areas of mathematics. DeMarco will receive the prize and $5,000 Jan. 5, 2017, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta. 

Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy

Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy, assistant professor of neurobiology, has been awarded the Janett Rosenberg Trubatch Career Development Award from the Society for Neuroscience (SfN). The award is given to two early-career professionals each year for originality and creativity in neuroscience research and includes a $2,000 prize, which will be presented this month at Neuroscience 2016, SfN’s annual meeting in San Diego.

Kozorovitskiy’s laboratory primarily focuses on the basal ganglia, a group of nuclei in the brain that processes information on movement and determines the best response to a given situation, such as using hands to catch a ball. Kozorovitskiy “uses a powerful, innovative and wide-ranging experimental toolkit to shed light on neuromodulation and neural circuit design principles,” the society said. Katherine Nagel of New York University is the other neuroscientist honored. 

Kenneth R. Poeppelmeier

Kenneth R. Poeppelmeier, a Morrison Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, has been elected a foreign member of the Real Academia de Ciencias (Royal Spanish Academy of Sciences). The society, founded in 1847, is dedicated to the study and research of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering and related sciences.

Poeppelmeier’s research interests range from the growth of single crystals to the synthesis of new nonlinear optical materials, transparent conductors and other interesting mixed metal oxides. His work emphasizes the connections between the synthesis and structure of new materials, the physical properties of new materials and the technological advances that result from these discoveries.

Poeppelmeier also is a professor of materials science and engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and director of Northwestern’s Center for Catalysis and Surface Science.

Tribeca Film Institute grants

Two graduate student-produced films from the Graduate School of Communication have each earned an $18,000 grant and other support, the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) announced Oct. 18.  Ashley Brandon, director of “On the Bit,” and Luther Clement and Shuhan Fan, co-directors of “Stay Close,” won two of the three 2016 TFI/ESPN Future Filmmaker Prizes. “On the Bit” follows veterans battered by the mental and physical wounds of combat who use the rodeo arena as a place of healing. “Stay Close” documents three generations of the Peter Westbrook Foundation’s fencing program, which trains African-American youth in New York City to reach Olympic heights. 

The Future Filmmaker Prize “aims to support the next generation of filmmakers in producing creative, story-driven films that highlight issues of social importance through the lens of sports, athletics, and/or competition with an $18,000 production grant as well as mentoring, workshops, and industry meetings,” according to TFI’s website. 

German Academic Exchange Service scholarships (multiple)

Ten Northwestern University students have earned scholarships from the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst - DAAD). The organization is the largest funding organization in the world that supports the international exchange of students and scholars. Scholarship winners are selected based on outstanding academic achievement and convincing project proposals from a highly competitive pool of applicants.

Below are Northwestern’s scholarship recipients: 

• Undergraduate: Megan Anderson, Jiaqi Shang
• Graduate study: Nadav Avruch, William Edward Krinsman, Carlos Pereira Di Salvo
• Research Internships in the Science and Engineering program: Shannon Carlson, Aditya Jain, Suwei Liu, Angela Walwema, Margot Zuckerman
  
  

Aldon Morris

Aldon Morris, the Leon Forrest Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, has been selected as co-winner for the Association for Humanist Sociology 2016 Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Book Award for his book, “The Scholar Denied: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology” (University of California Press, 2015). An awards ceremony will be held Nov. 3 in Denver at the association’s annual meeting. Earlier this year, Morris won the PROSE Awards’ prestigious R.R. Hawkins Award for “The Scholar Denied.” Morris used more than a decade’s-worth of research to argue that power, money, politics and the ideology of white supremacy led to W.E.B. Du Bois being “written out” of the founding of sociology and his intellectual breakthroughs marginalized.

Katherine Amato

Katherine Amato, assistant professor of anthropology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is a member of the inaugural cohort of 18 exceptional early-career investigators to the new Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Azrieli Global Scholars Program. Amato is a biological anthropologist studying the gut microbiota in the broad context of host ecology and evolution. The prestigious two-year appointment provides $100,000 in research support as well as specialized leadership development programs. The program funds and supports researchers within five years of their first academic appointment, helping them build research networks and develop essential skills needed to become leaders in global research. 

Rebecca Gilman

Rebecca Gilman, professor of radio, television and film in the School of Communication, has been inducted into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame, which recognizes those professionals who have proved outstanding in their field. This class of inductees, which also includes Truman Capote, represents authors from a broad range of Alabama history. Gilman is a Trussville native and playwright who graduated from Birmingham Southern College. She has been recognized as a significant American playwright in the U.S and in London. Gilman’s plays have received numerous productions at regional theaters and abroad, including productions at the Goodman Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, Lincoln Center Theatre, the Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Theatre Workshop and Manhattan Class Company.