Spring honors and awards

Talia Shiff

Talia Shiff, a doctoral candidate in  sociology at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a student at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, received a grant from the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy for her research,“Framing the Case: Bureaucratic Efficiency Pressures in the Humanitarian Politicization, Legitimation and Adjudication of Refugee Claims.” The Horowitz Foundation supports the advancement of research and understanding in the major fields of the social sciences.

U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships

Three students from Northwestern University have been awarded U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships to study critical languages during the summer of 2017.

Jackson Walker will study Urdu in Lucknow, India; Kali Robinson will study Arabic in Tangier, Morocco; and Jessica Castellanos will study Russian in Vladimir, Russia.

The Critical Language Scholarship program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. CLS scholars gain critical language and cultural skills that enable them to contribute to U.S. economic competitiveness and national security. These students join approximately 550 competitively selected American students at U.S. colleges and universities who received a CLS award in 2017. Read more about the Critical Language Scholarships program from the office of fellowships.

Gabriela “Gaby” Dago

Gabriela “Gaby” Dago, of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is one of 75 Americans selected to participate in the 2017-18 Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals (CBYX), a yearlong U.S. Department of State-funded fellowship for study and work in Germany. Since 1984, over 2,000 Americans have been awarded this opportunity to gain cultural, academic, and practical work experience in Germany.

While in Germany, Dago will attend a two-month intensive German language course, study at a German university or professional school for four months and complete a five-month internship with a German company in her career field (government). Participants are placed throughout Germany and have the opportunity to learn about everyday German life from a variety of perspectives. Read more about Dago and the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals  from the office of fellowships.

Jennifer Tackett

Jennifer Tackett, associate professor of psychology and director of clinical training in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University, has been named senior editor of the newly launched clinical psychology section of the journal Collabra: Psychology.

“I wanted to get involved in the new clinical psychology section because clinical psychology has largely been absent from the replicability/open science conversation to date,” Tackett said. “I’m attracted to the values and practices of Collabra: Psychology and the changes it will make in the way we publish and consume empirical research.”

Tackett’s areas of research interest include externalizing and disinhibitory psychopathology in youth; genetic and hormonal influences on externalizing problems; youth personality; and gender and racial/ethnic disparities in externalizing problems.

Awarded a 2017 PROSE Honorable Mention for Innovation in Journals, Collabra: Psychology is a mission-driven open access journal from the University of California Press that shares not only the research it publishes, but also the value created by the psychology community during the peer-review process. Collabra: Psychology has seven sections representing the broad field of psychology, including the newly launched clinical psychology section. 

Royal Society of Chemistry honors

Richard Van Duyne and Michael R. Wasielewski of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences have received honors from the Royal Society of Chemistry in the U.K. Each year the society presents prizes and awards to individuals, teams and organizations from around the world for outstanding achievements advancing the chemical sciences. 

Van Duyne, the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry, is the recipient of the Spiers Memorial Award. This award recognizes an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of a Faraday Discussion, the RSC’s unique international discussion meetings, which focus on rapidly developing areas of chemistry.

Wasielewski, the Clare Hamilton Hall Professor of Chemistry and executive director of the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN), is the recipient of the Physical Organic Chemistry Award. This award recognizes his pioneering contributions to understanding electron transfer reactions and their dependence on molecular structure and spin dynamics in organic molecules.

The Royal Society of Chemistry is the largest organization in Europe for advancing the chemical sciences. 

2017 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellows named

Three Northwestern University Ph.D. candidates — Ean High, Kalonji Nzinga and Hannah Scheidt — have been named Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellows for 2017 at the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.  

The Newcombe Fellowship is the nation’s largest and most prestigious award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences addressing questions of ethical and religious values. Each Fellow will receive a 12-month award of $25,000 to support their final year of dissertation work. 

High is completing his dissertation, titled "Quakerism, Silence, and the Religious Body in American Literature, 1650-1865," in the department of English. The dissertation explores literary representations of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, from 1650 to 1865.

Nzinga is completing his dissertation, titled "The Social Conscience of Rap: Moral Socialization Within Hip-Hop Culture," in the department of learning sciences.

Scheidt is completing her dissertation, titled "Practicing Atheism: Culture, Media, and Ritual in the Contemporary Atheist Network," in the department of religious studies. The dissertation analyzes the meanings and values associated with atheism —beyond a simple lack of belief in god(s) — for those active in contemporary atheist culture.

For more information, on the Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship, please visit woodrow.org/fellowships/newcombe.

Daniel Immerwahr

Daniel Immerwahr, assistant professor of history in the Weinberg College of Arts of Sciences, is one of 35 recipients of a 2017 Andrew Carnegie fellowship. The program, which recognizes scholars, writers and journalists who have the goal of “strengthening U.S. democracy, driving technological and cultural creativity, exploring global connections and global ruptures, and improving both natural and human environments,” awards each fellow up to $200,000 toward significant research and writing in the social sciences and humanities. Immerwahr, a scholar of U.S. and global history specializing in development, empire and the history of ideas, is currently writing a book, “How to Hide an Empire,” about America’s overseas territory. He previously authored “Thinking Small,” a critical account of the United States’ pursuit of grassroots development at home and abroad in the middle of the 20^th century.  

Franz Geiger

Franz Geiger, professor of chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded the 2017 Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Prize of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for his outstanding research record on environmental interfaces and nonlinear spectroscopy. This research award recognizes scientists and scholars from abroad, internationally renowned in their field, who completed their doctorates less than 18 years ago and who in future are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements that will have a seminal influence on their discipline beyond their immediate field of work.

Two Northwestern students named Carnegie junior fellows

Gustavo Berrizbeitia and Alli Divine will spend next year at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., as research assistants through the James C. Gaither Junior Fellows Program. Each year, the endowment offers 10 to 15 fellowships nationally to graduating seniors and individuals who have graduated during the past academic year. Fellows are selected from a pool of nominees from close to 400 participating colleges. Carnegie Junior Fellows work as research assistants to the endowment’s senior associates. Read more from the Office of Fellowships

John Hudson

John Hudson, director of the geography program, is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Rural and Agricultural Geography. The award is presented by Rural Geography Specialty Group to recognize individuals whose accomplishments have distinguished them at a level above and beyond their peers. In addition to Hudson's inspirational teaching, he has a notable publication record that includes books and articles on a range of geography topics. Hudson presents original research on agricultural geography at almost every national American Association of Geographers conference, and he continues to be a productive teacher and scholar since discovering the field of geography more than fifty years ago. Read more about Hudson's work: Book tells gripping tale of Chicago racial imbalance.

Northwestern team wins LawMeet start-up competition 

In the inaugural Startup LawMeet, an interdisciplinary competition for students interested in a transactional practice specifically involving entrepreneurial companies, the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law team of Francisco Gallegos Hoyos (Master of Science in Law), Ryan Scott Genkin (JD MBA), and Laura McJilton (JD) successfully competed in the National Championships held at the Palo Alto, California, offices of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati on March 24. The team, which was one of 12 teams from across the country to be invited to the finals, emerged as one of the final four after several rounds in the morning and was then named the National Champion following the afternoon session.

Andrea d'Aquino

Andrea d’Aquino, a doctoral candidate in chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, has been selected to participate in the 67^th annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, from June 25-30 in Lindau, Germany. She is one of only 400 young scientists (35 of younger) from around the world selected to interact with and learn from Nobel laureates. D’Aquino is conducting research in the field of organometallic chemistry under the guidance of Chad Mirkin, director of the International Institute of Nanotechnology at Northwestern and a professor in the McCormick School of Engineering. She will join researchers who span the private, public and educational sectors and hail from 76 countries to share knowledge, ideas and experiences with more than 30 Nobel laureates during the meetings.  

Thomas Bradshaw

Thomas Bradshaw, associate professor of radio/television/film in the School of Communication and a core faculty member of the School of Communication’s MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage program, has been awarded a 2017 PEN America Literary Award. Bradshaw is honored as this year's Emerging American Playwright in the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Awards. He was a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2010 Prince Charitable Trust Prize awardee and a featured playwright in Time Out New York’s 10 playwrights to watch. For more than 90 years, PEN America has been working with the international PEN community to ensure people everywhere have the freedom to create literature, convey information and ideas, express their views and to make it possible for everyone to access the views, ideas and literatures of others.