Honors for Five Women Scholars

Cecilia Hernandez, a new assistant professor in the College of Education at New Mexico State University, has been selected to receive the 2013 Distinguished Dissertation Award at the annual convention of the Association of Teacher Educators this coming spring. Her dissertation, completed at Kansas State University, was entitled, “The Extent to Which Latina/o Pre-Service Teachers Demonstrate Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices During Science and Mathematics Instruction.”

Dr. Hernandez earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology at Texas Tech University.

Catherine Constable, professor of geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego, has been selected as a recipient of the Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany. The award comes with a cash prize of approximately $75,000.

Dr. Constable is a graduate of the University of Western Australia. She holds a master’s degree from Australian National University and a Ph.D. from the University of California San Diego.

Florence Dunkel, an associate professor in the department of plant sciences at Montana State University in Bozeman, has been selected to receive the 2012 Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching from the Entomological Society of America. She will receive the award at the society’s annual meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee, in November.

Dr. Dunkel holds a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and a Ph.D. in entomology, all from the University of Wisconsin.

Lisa Grant Ludwig, an associate professor of geology at the University of California at Irvine, shared the 2012 Software of the Year Award presented by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. She was honored for developing QuakeSim, a program that models the behavior of earthquake faults.

Dr. Ludwig is a graduate of Stanford University. She holds two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in geology from the California Institute of Technology.

Cristina Fernandez-Valle, an associate professor of biomedical sciences at the College of Medicine of the University of Central Florida, has received the National Role Model Award at the annual conference of Minority Access. Over a 15-year career at UCF, she has mentored 70 students and postdoctoral fellows and 60 percent of them were members of underrepresented minorities.

Dr. Fernandez-Valle earned her doctorate at the University of Miami.