Recent accomplishments by the campus community were earned by faculty/staff Robin Bowman, Bedros Der Matossian, Alisa Gilmore, Andrew Nisley, Terri Norton, Chigozie Obioma, Dan Piatkowski, Catherine Fraser Riehle and Jenny Schnase; and students Kaleb Briscoe, Christy Hyman and Amy Leiferman.
Faculty/Staff
Robin Bowman and Jenny Schnase earned awards during the University Association for Administrative Development Founder’s Day celebration on Feb. 15. Bowman, assistant director for injury prevention and care at Campus Recreation, received the Floyd S. Oldt Award for Exceptional Service and Dedication. Schnase, assistant director and manager of project controls for Facilities Planning and Construction, received the Carl A. Donaldson Award for Excellence in Management. For more information on the awards, click here.
Bedros Der Matossian, associate professor of history, has earned the Society for Armenian Studies Outstanding Book award for his book “Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire” (Stanford University Press, 2014). Established in 2015, the award accepted nominations for works that advanced knowledge and scholarship on Armenian society, culture, and history from ancient times to the present. According to the selection committee, “Shattered Dreams” demonstrated substantive knowledge and overall high level of scholarship. For more information on the award, click here.
Alisa Gilmore and Terri Norton were among 12 African-American educators and mentors in Omaha honored Jan. 18 by the Empowerment Network for contributions to the community through work with youth in science, technology, engineering and math fields. Both received Innovator awards. Gilmore, associate professor of practice in electrical and computer engineering, is coordinator of the Nebraska Robotics Expo, which draws hundreds of K-12 students and teachers from across Nebraska for robotics competitions. For the past four summers, Norton, associate professor of construction engineering, has hosted Pink Hard Hat Days. The event introduces high school girls to careers in construction and engineering fields. For more information, click here.
Andrea Nisley and her family were honored as the 2017 Lexington Area Chamber of Commerce Farm Family of the Year award. Nisley is a Nebraska Extension educator at the West Central Research and Extension Center in Lexington. The Nisleys have farmed for 45 years, continuing a legacy that started 137 years ago. For more information about the award, click here.
Chigozie Obioma, assistant professor of English, has sold the stage rights to his acclaimed 2015 novel “The Fishermen.” New Perspectives, a theater company based in Nottingham, England, will premiere the production in 2018. The company is known in the United Kingdom for its innovative stage adaptations of novels, short stories, radio and film. Its previous adaptations include works by Don DeLillo, Saul Bellow, Ted Hughes and Daphne DuMaurier. “The Fishermen,” which was a finalist for Great Britain’s prestigious Man Booker Prize, tells the story of four young brothers in a small Nigerian town who defy their father’s wishes by sneaking to a nearby river to go fishing. They encounter a madman, whose prophecy of death consumes their family.
Dan Piatkowski, assistant professor of community and regional planning, was honored for his abstract titled “Promoting Bicycling in the Face of ‘Bikelash’ – Why Bicyclists Break the Law and what it Means for Encouraging Active Transportation.” The abstract was selected for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Excellence in Safety Research for Active Living award. The honor was presented to Piatkowski at the 2017 Active Living Research conference on Feb 28.
Catherine Fraser Riehle, associate professor and instructional resources design librarian, joined the University Libraries on Jan. 3. In the new role, she will work with other members of the libraries’ core instruction team to initiate, redesign and develop collaborative courses, modules and research that supports active learning pedagogy and curriculum design. Prior to coming to Nebraska, Riehle was a faculty member in the Purdue University libraries from 2006 to 2016.
Students
Kaleb Briscoe, a first-year doctoral student in the educational leadership and higher education program, will receive the 2017 Commission for Student Involvement – Outstanding Service to the Commission Award from the American College Personnel Association. The award honors a professional staff member who has given outstanding service to the commission. Briscoe will be presented the award at the commission’s 2017 convention in Columbus, Ohio, on March 27. For more information, click here.
Amy Leiferman, a first-year graduate student in nutrition and health sciences, has been named one of 12 finalists for the American Society for Nutrition’s Nutritional Sciences Council 2017 Graduate Student Research Awards Competition. The award is the society’s most prestigious national recognition for students conducting nutrition research. Leiferman’s abstract is titled “Dietary Depletion of Bovine Milk Exosomes Elicits Changes in Amino Acid Metabolism in C57BL/6 Mice.” As a finalist, she will participate in an oral competition during the society’s scientific sessions and annual meeting at the Experimental Biology 2017 conference in April in Chicago.
Christy Hyman, a doctoral student in history, has been named a 2017 National Humanities Without Walls Pre-Doctoral Fellow. She is developing a project, “The Oak of Jerusalem: Flight, Refuge and Reconnaissance in the Great Dismal Swamp Region,” using spatial technologies to uncover enslaved canal laborers’ intellectual network. As a fellow, Hyman will participate in a three-week-long workshop in Chicago. The workshops encourage humanities doctoral students to think of themselves as agents of the public humanities and showcase opportunities beyond the walls of the academy. For more information, click here.
This column is a regular Friday feature of Nebraska 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
