Recent achievements for the campus community were collected by Craig Allen, Judy Anderson, Jenny Dauer, Leslie Delserone, Mary Fischer, Kerri Hiatt, Wendy Katz, Stacy Manson, Jackie Ostrowicki, Morgan Palmer, Lance C. Pérez, Paul Read, Dirac Twidwell, the Soil Judging Team and students in the Glenn Korff School of Music.

Honors

• Judy Anderson, editorial assistant with University Communication; Mary Fischer, an on-call worker with Athletics; Stacy Manson, an on-call concession supervisor at the Lied Center for Performing Arts; and Jackie Ostrowicki, assistant vice president and director of marketing and strategic communication with Central Administration, sang solos in a Torch Singer 101 fall concert at Happy Raven on Oct. 16. The concert was the culmination of a six-week vocal course taught by Jackie Allen, a jazz vocalist and educator. The singers were backed by music faculty Tom Larson, assistant professor, on piano; and Hans Sturm, professor, on bass.

Katie Black | University Communication

Judy Anderson sings during the Torch Singer 101 fall concert Oct. 16 at the Happy Raven. The event featured four singers who are University of Nebraska employees.

• Kerri Hiatt, associate director of business graduate programs and senior MBA adviser, joined the inaugural cohort of the National Association of Graduate Admissions Professionals Leadership Academy this fall. The intensive leadership development experience, offered to graduate enrollment professionals, includes two in-person seminars accompanied by monthly webinars, leadership assessments and coaching.

• Wendy Katz, professor of art history, is the recipient of the year-long Reynolda Fellowship. The fellowship, funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will allow Katz to teach and conduct research in the Reynolda House Museum of American Art at North Carolina’s Wake Forest University.

• Morgan Palmer, assistant professor of practice of classics and religious studies, has received a research fellowship from the Hardt Foundation for the study of classical antiquity. As part of the fellowship, Palmer will travel to Switzerland this summer to spend four weeks working on her book “Inscribing Rome: Memory and Monuments in Livy’s History.”

• Lance C. Pérez, dean of the College of Engineering and Omar H. Heins Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been selected to receive the 2019 Distinguished Member Award from the Education Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The award recognizes outstanding long-term service to the IEEE Education Society and significant contributions in fields of interest to the IEEE. Pérez will be presented the award Oct. 18 at the society’s banquet, which is part of the Frontiers in Education Conference in Cincinnati.

• Paul Read, professor of agronomy and horticulture, was installed as chair of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture–Eastern Section at the organization’s annual conference in Geneva, New York. The society promotes the interests of enologists, viticulturists and others in the fields of wine and grape research and production throughout the world.

• Nebraska’s Soil Judging Team took home first place in the individual, team and overall contests of the Region 5 competition Oct. 3 in Grand Island, Nebraska. This is the second time in three years that Nebraska has swept at the regional competition. The team’s placement also puts it in a top position for the 2020 National Soil Judging Contest set for this spring in Ohio.

Nebraska's fall 2019 Soil Judging Team

• Thirty-six students from the Glenn Korff School of Music received recognition for excellence in vocal performance during a recent trip to the Nebraska NATS Student Auditions Oct. 4. The auditions were held at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

• University Libraries was among seven organizations nationwide to receive funding from Project CERES, which supports ongoing print and digital preservation projects on agricultural history and practice, rural life, industry and trade, and environmental change. Leslie M. Delserone, associate professor of University Libraries, will use the award to digitize the historical Circulars of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station from 1917 to 1971.

Appointments

• Jenny Dauer, associate professor in the School of Natural Resources, has been named associate director for undergraduate education for the school beginning Oct. 1. As associate director, Dauer will provide leadership, vision and administrative oversight to the strategic planning and operation of the school, with a key focus on undergraduate education. She also will assist with the unit’s annual review and five-year review processes and provide oversight of undergraduate student services.

Publications

• Research teams that include Craig Allen, director of the university’s Center for Resilience in Working Agricultural Landscapes, and Dirac Twidwell, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture, recently published commentaries on environmental resilience in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and in Nature Sustainability. The PNAS commentary offers multiple examples of how existing laws in the United States and Europe could be better tapped to overcome the challenges of environmental change and make ecosystems more resilient. In the Nature Sustainability commentary, Allen, Twidwell and colleagues attempt to reconcile competing frameworks on the concept of ecological resilience, an effort they argue has important implications for contending with worldwide change.

This column is a regular feature of Nebraska Today. Faculty, staff and students can submit achievements to be considered for this column via email to achievements@unl.edu. For more information, call 402-472-8515.