Mark Abkowitz, professor of civil and environmental engineering, has been inducted into the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists as a board-certified environmental engineering member. Abkowitz, who is also a professor of engineering management and director of the Vanderbilt Center for Environmental Management Studies, is the fourth Vanderbilt environmental engineering faculty member in three years to be accepted into the AAEES.
Blair School of Music received two Best of Nashville 2015 awards from the Nashville Scene. Carolyn Huebl, associate professor of violin, won the Best Classical Musician award, and the Blair School’s new organ was voted Best Classical Instrument.
Julia Cohen, associate professor of Jewish studies, has received the 2015 Barbara Jelavich Prize from the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies for her book Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era (Oxford University Press).
Earl E. Fitz, professor of Portuguese, Spanish and comparative literature, gave an invited talk, “An Arc of Brilliance: Innovation and Tradition in the Narratives of Machado de Assis and Eca de Queiros,” at an international symposium on trans-Atlantic dialogues held at Indiana University. Fitz also had two essays appear in The International Turn in American Studies, published by Peter Lang (Frankfurt am Main, 2015). The essays were “Inter-American Literary Studies in the Early 21st Century: The View from the United States” and “Inter-American Studies as an Emerging Field: The Future of a Discipline,” the latter reprinted from a special issue of the Vanderbilt e-Journal of Luso-Hispanic Studies, 2004.
Lacy Paschal, director of Web Communications, received a Best in Track Award at the 2015 HighEdWeb national conference held in Milwaukee for her conference presentation “Slacking Off at Work,” which discussed the use of the Slack Web application as a collaboration tool.
David F. Salisbury, senior research writer in University News and Communications, has received the 2015 Distinguished Service Award from the Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Science and Engineering.
Six faculty members have received 2015-16 Southeastern Conference Visiting Faculty Travel grants. The program is designed to enhance faculty collaboration between SEC member universities by providing faculty from one SEC institution the opportunity to travel to another SEC campus to exchange ideas, develop grant proposals and conduct research.
- Ellen Armour, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Associate Professor of Feminist Theology, will travel to Texas A&M University to deliver a public lecture and participate in a workshop.
- Will Doyle, associate professor of higher education, will travel to the University of Georgia for a presentation and roundtable discussion.
- Jared Hauser, associate professor of oboe, will travel to Louisiana State University to give a recital and conduct a master class.
- Michael Hodges, professor of philosophy, will travel to the University of South Carolina for a research collaboration.
- Douglas Shadle, assistant professor of musicology, will travel to the University of Arkansas to conduct research and curate an exhibit.
- Greg Walker, associate professor of mechanical engineering, will travel to the University of Florida for a research collaboration.