April 1, 2016

Achievements | Honors, awards, publications for April 1


Recent honors, awards and publication collected by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln community include Michaela Habe, Terry Hejny, Sara Weixelman and Vitaly Zlotnik.

Colleges and Departments

  • The Chartered Financial Analyst Institute, a global association of investment professionals, has reaffirmed the College of Business Administration as a CFA Program Partner school, continuing the partnership established in 2008. The network of 153 CFA Program Partners extends across the globe, with only 36 partner schools in the United States. CFA Program Partners are high-profile universities that embed a significant percentage of the CFA Program Candidate Body of Knowledge into their programs, including the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct. Students pursuing a degree in finance are eligible to apply for the CFA Investments Option. The CFA track is composed of a core of finance requirements including courses specifically designed to be relevant to the current financial industry that cover at least 70 percent of the CBOK included in the Level I, II and III CFA examinations.

  • The College of Education and Human Sciences is sending a team of faculty and student researchers to present their findings at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association from April 8-12 in Washington, D.C. For a listing of presentations by the college’s researchers, click here.

  • The College of Journalism and Mass Communications placed third overall in the 2016 Hearst Journalism Awards Intercollegiate Broadcast Competition. UNL had the third-highest accumulated student points in the two TV and one radio competition this year. In the radio competition, junior Tommy Rezac placed second, and senior Evan Hummel placed third. Both will advance to the Championship in San Francisco in June. In the TV news competition, sophomore Bailey Hurley placed third. For more on this achievement, click here.

Faculty and Staff

  • Michaela Habe, financial specialist in the Department of Art and Art History, received a Kudos award on March 18 during the University of Nebraska Board of Regents meeting. The Kudos award is a university-wide honor presented by the Regents to celebrate staff who go above and beyond in their work for the university. Since August 2012, Habe has managed the business and finance operations for the department. She has worked to improve business processes, automate repetitive tasks, generate timely and useful financial reports and supports the academic and research/creative activity missions of the department and college.

  • Terry Hejny, director of the Nebraska LEAD Program and president of the Nebraska Agricultural Leadership Council, was recently honored with the Omaha Agri-Business Club Leadership Award. The award is presented annually to an individual who has made exceptional contributions to agriculture, promoted agriculture or agribusiness within the local and larger community, and made efforts to increase public understanding or appreciation for agriculture. Hejny has been the director of the Nebraska LEAD Program since 2007. For more on this achievement, click here.

  • Sara Weixelman, human resource generalist in the College of Business Administration, recently earned her Society for Human Resource Management-Certified Professional, or SHRM-CP, credential. SHRM is the world’s largest membership organization for human resource professionals. The SHRM-CP provides Weixelman with the qualifications to be an expert in the HR field. It also ensures her knowledge is current and relevant and that she has learned practical skills for using best judgment and current best HR practices in day-to-day situations. For more on this achievement, click here.

  • Vitaly Zlotnik, Earth and atmospheric sciences and a Daugherty Water for Food Institute Faculty Fellow, provided a keynote address March 13 at the 2016 International Water Conference, an interdisciplinary forum targeted to Gulf countries, at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. Zlotnik and colleagues have researched and collaborated among scientists, universities, government and others to help improve water resources management in the Middle East. Zlotnik launched a project in 2014 with colleagues from Sultan Qaboos and the University of Jordan that focused on using treated wastewater more efficiently through Managed Aquifer Recharge. Zlotnik and his colleagues modeled aquifers to better characterize their properties, assessing their water storage and recharge potential, and developing a “toolbox” for water resources evaluations using MAR. For more information about Zlotnik’s work, click here.

Students

  • Ashley Foster, a graduate student in entomology, co-authored a chapter in the textbook “Forensic Science: A Multidisciplinary Approach.” Foster’s chapter covers DNA damage and repair in forensic science. The textbook focuses on all the disciplines that are used in forensic science, including biology, chemistry, physical methods and more. Foster earned her bachelor degree in forensic biochemistry from Northern Michigan University and is now a graduate research and teaching assistant at UNL.

  • Architecture graduate students Alex Moore, Brad Wissmueller, Meghan Janousek and Phuong Nguyen competed in the PDC Summit for the AIA/AAH Planning + Design Student Challenge earlier this month. Moore’s team was awarded honorable mention and Nguyen’s team won first place. The students were grouped in teams with other architecture students from Texas Tech University, architectural engineering students from the University of Colorado Boulder and construction management students from the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. The annual event is designed to stimulate critical inquiry, creative ideas and multi-disciplinary interaction between students and design professionals. For more on this achievement, click here.

This column is a regular Friday 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.

Vitaly Zlotnik
Michaela Habe
Michaela Habe
Terry Hejny
Sara Weixelman