Members of the UNL community who were featured in award announcements for the week of March 9 to 13 include Wally Mason, Frauke Hachtmann, Alecia Kimbrough and Lindsay Augustyn. More information on each achievement is listed below.

Faculty/Staff

Wally Mason, director of the Sheldon Museum of Art, has been elected to membership in the Association of Art Museum Directors. Founded in 1916, AAMD comprises museum directors from 242 art museums in the United States, Canada and Mexico that have established and continue to maintain the highest professional standards, thereby increasing the contribution of art museums to society.

The organization serves as a forum for the exchange of information and the exploration of ideas, and as a voice with which art museum directors may express their joint concerns and those of their institutions. Sheldon Museum of Art houses a permanent collection of more than 12,000 objects focusing on American art. For more information, click here.

Matthias Fuchs, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, has been selected to the Young Investigator Research Program by the Air Force Office of Secondary Research. The program supports promising researchers who have earned doctorates within the last five years by providing them with $360,000 in funding over the next three. Fuchs, who joined UNL in 2013, said the central goal of the research is the development of a novel technique that could shrink the size of high-power X-ray sources from a typical footprint of more than a dozen football fields to roughly that of a dining room table. The technique, he said, should significantly improve the quality of X-ray emissions by producing radiation at least a trillion times brighter than the sun’s. It will also generate X-ray pulses lasting only a few femtoseconds. Counting to one second by intervals of 60 femtoseconds per minute would take more than 31 million years.

“Such ultra-short pulses allow us to take a deep look into matter on the atomic scale,” Fuchs said. “We can spatially (examine) individual atoms, and with the extremely short duration of the pulses, we can look at atomic motion in real time. These combined properties allow us to make ‘molecular movies’ of atomic dynamics.”

This advanced insight into atomic processes, Fuchs said, could ultimately contribute to the next generation of clean energy, bolster the speed of information technology and inform the design of novel materials.

Waskar Ari, associate professor of history and ethnic studies, has earned a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. The fellowship will supply a salary stipend to Ari during the Fall 2015 semester, which will allow him to continue working on his research project, Women’s Strategies of Autonomy: Segregation, Sexuality, and Agrarian Reforms in Bolivia 1870-1964. The ACLS is a leading private institution that supports scholars in the humanities and related social sciences at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels and has been awarding fellowships to scholars for nearly 90 years. Fellows and grantees in all programs are selected by committees of scholars appointed for this purpose.

Frauke Hachtmann, sequence head and professor of advertising and public relations, and interim associate dean has been selected for the eighth anual Scripps Howard Academic Leadership Academy on June 7-11 at Louisiana State University. The academy brings together academics and professionals to learn administrative strategies and gain insight into academic leadership. During their time in the academy, mid-career academics and professionals will meet with seasoned administrators to learn about management, discuss the future of media education and consider issues critical to those interested in or new to leadership roles. Nearly 100 participants have graduated from the academy and hold various administrative positions at institutions around the country including the University of Florida, the University of Maryland, Elon University, The Pennsylvania State University, Hampton University and Northwestern. Members of the 2015 class represent a combination of institutions of higher education and the professional mass communication sector; Hachtman joins 17 other professors, administrators and communication professionals.

Alecia Kimbrough, assistant dean for business and finance in the College of Arts and Sciences; and Lindsay Augustyn, outreach and communications coordinator in the center for science, mathematics and computer education, were honored at the University Association for Administrative Development’s Founders Day celebration Feb. 20. Ron Yoder, associate vice chancellor of IANR, provided the keynote presentation and presented the annual Carl A. Donaldson and Floyd S. Oldt awards. Kimbrough received for the Carl A. Donaldson Award for Excellence in Management, while the Floyd S. Oldt Award for Exceptional Service and Dedication went to Augustyn. UAAD’s mission is to provide leadership, networking, professional development and growth on behalf of UNL’s managerial and professional employees. UAAD serves as a contributing partner to the university mission of teaching, research and outreach; for more information, go to http://uaad.unl.edu/welcome.

Students

College of Journalism and Mass Communications students won numerous awards at the American Advertising Awards competition Feb. 21. Jacht Ad Lab, the college’s student advertising agency, took home a Gold ADDY Award and special judge’s citation for “Ignite,” a video to recruit students to the college. The judge’s citation is in recognition of exceptional work. The college also took home five additional awards in the silver group — two went to Jacht Ad Lab, two went to the advertising and public relations campaigns competition course, and the fifth award went to an advertising and campaigns capstone course. Students won in the categories of photography, animation, elements of advertising, online advertising and digital. Students’ winning entries will be forwarded to the district competition in early April in Kansas City.

Eric Hitt, a sophomore music major, has won the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra’s 2015 Young Jazz Artist Award. He will receive a cash prize and perform as a soloist at the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra’s “Left Coast Swing” concert April 17. Hitt is working toward a bachelor’s degree in double bass performance from UNL. He performs with the UNL Symphony Orchestra, a graduate jazz combo and also is an active performer throughout the Midwest. He also went on a one-week tour of China with the Nebraska Jazz Experiment in 2014.

Brent Scott Maze, a junior film and new media major from Falls City, had two films, “Ambulance” and “Infinite,” selected to screen at the Omaha Film Festival this week. He is among several Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film students and alumni with work in the festival. Some of the other films with Carson School ties to be screened at this year’s festival include “Working Title” by Logan Gee, “Sidekick” by Dylan Adams, “Contact” by Alexander Jeffery, “Just Another Tuesday” by Derek Davidson, “Nobody” by Jordan Fountain, “Diner Off the Highway” by Drew Conley, “Damnit Mamet” by Michael Lang, “A Game on the Line” by Jake Hull and “Ellie” by Allison Eckert. “Infinite” was directed by Maze and written by Nolan Anderson. The seven-minute film is about a young man finding his way to the roots of a mysterious recurring dream within a series of visits to his psychiatrist, who discovers much more than he bargained for. Maze wrote the script for “Ambulance” last year in class, but wasn’t able to make the 15-minute film until last summer. He also directed it and produced it with Jessica Schrader. The festival runs through March 15 at the Village Pointe Theatre in Omaha; for more information or for a schedule of screenings, visit http://omahafilmfestival.org/.

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