Recent achievements for the campus community were earned by Humberto Blanco, Balpreet Kaur Dhatt, Osler Ortez, Anthony Amori, Christopher Anuo, Rituraj Khound, Chenyong Miao, Manny Saluja and Milos Zaric, Sanda Mašić, Eric North, Chigozie Obioma, Jordan Redd, Maddy Stark, Nathan Franz, Cierra O’Shields, Edwin Bahena-Flores, Emery Tanghanwaye, Kate NG, Timothy Ganser, Iker González-Allende and Angela Palmer-Wackerly.

Honors

• Humberto Blanco, professor of agronomy and horticulture, has been selected as a Soil Science Society of America Fellow. SSSA recognized Blanco’s contributions and achievements and included him in the society’s virtual 2020 Awards Hall of Fame Nov. 13. The fellow designation is the highest recognition bestowed by the SSSA. Members nominate worthy colleagues based on their professional achievement and meritorious service, and annually, only a select few are bestowed with the fellow designation.

• Eight Department of Agronomy and Horticulture doctoral students were honored with fellowships by the Agricultural Research Division and the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. Those honored include Balpreet Kaur Dhatt, Osler Ortez, Anthony Amori, Christopher Anuo, Rituraj Khound, Chenyong Miao, Manny Saluja and Milos Zaric. Read the full story here.

• Siavash Jafarzadeh, Ziguang Chen and Florin Bobaru have been awarded the 2020 Corrosion Best Paper Award from NACE International for “Peridynamic Modeling of Repassivation in Pitting Corrosion of Stainless Steel,” published in Corrosion.

• Sanda Mašić, Glenn Korff School of Music graduate student, was recently named a first prize winner at the Charleston Romantic International Competition. Read the full story online.

• Eric North, who started the University of Nebraska–Lincoln School of Natural Resources Regional and Community Forestry degree, was awarded the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum’s Educator Award Dec. 16. The award “recognizes educators who have made an outstanding contribution toward advancing the knowledge and appreciation of plants among their students.” More information about landscape efforts and statewide gardens can be found at the plant Nebraska website.

• Chigozie Obioma, James E. Ryan Associate Professor of English, has been named a 2021 Booker Prize judge. The prize is one of literature’s top international awards, recognizing outstanding fiction in the English-speaking world. Obioma is among only a handful of authors who have been shortlisted twice, and he accomplished it with back-to-back novels.

• Jordan Redd, Glenn Korff School of Music graduate student, recently won first prize in the Charleston International Music Competition. This is the third international competition of which Redd has been awarded first prize. Read the full story here.

• Maddy Stark, junior vocal performance major, won the Music Theatre Singer of the Year award. Forty Glenn Korff School of Music student singers also won recognition as part of the 2020 West Central NATS Regional Student Auditions Online Competition Oct. 22 through Dec. 5. A record-breaking 481 students entered from across the region. See more about the online competition and awards here.

• Four students and their adviser received awards for outstanding residence hall leadership in Residence Hall Association (RHA) and National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH) at the Midwest Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls (MACURH) regional leadership conference in early November. Nathan Franz, a political science and economics major and resident assistant (RA) in Courtyards, received the Golden Cowbell pin. Cierra O’Shields, junior math education major and president of NRHH, received the Molly Initiative Pin for significant contributions to boardroom at conference. Three additional students were also recognized for a top ten conference presentation. Edwin Bahena-Flores, a sophomore business administration major from Omaha, Nebraska, is the current RHA president. Emery Tanghanwaye, a sophomore computer science major from Papillion, Nebraska, is the RHA vice president. Kate NG, a sophomore political science major from Petaling Jaya, a city from the state of Selangor in Malaysia, serves as the RHA national communications coordinator and as a resident assistant in The Village.

Appointments

• The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film has named Timothy Ganser as managing marketing director. Ganser began his duties part-time on Jan. 5 and will begin full-time in March. This new position replaces the general manager position held by Julie Hagemeier, who retired in January 2021. Read the full story here.

Publications

• Iker González-Allende published in October 2020 a critical edition of the novel Euzkadi en llamas “The Basque Country in Flames,” by Ramón Belaustegigoitia, in Txalaparta, a press in Navarre, Spain. This is the first edition of the novel since its original publication date in 1938 in Mexico.

• Minority Health Disparities Initiative core faculty and staff, led by MHDI Rural Health Research Coordinator Angela Palmer-Wackerly, recently published an article concentrating on the multilevel communication processes present in HealthVoiceVision, a community-based participatory research project (CBPR) in Lexington, Nebraska. View the publication here.

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.