Seven Women Scholars Awarded Distinguished Honors

Alice Baumgartner, a graduate student in history at Yale University, received the 2014 Louis Pelzer Memorial Award from the Organization of American Historians. The award recognizes the best essay on American history by a graduate student. Her research, entitled “The Line of Positive Safety: Borders Boundaries and Nations in the Rio Grande Valley, 1848-1880,” will be published in the Journal of American History.

Baumgartner is a graduate of Yale University and holds a master’s degree in Latin American studies at Oxford University.

Stephanie Luster-Teasley, an associate professor in the College of Engineering at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, has been selected to receive the 2014 Dupont Minorities in Engineering Award from the American Society for Engineering Education. She will receive the award at the society’s annual conference in Indianapolis this June.

Dr. Luster-Teasley is a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University, where she majored in chemical engineering. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. at Michigan State University.

Martha Hilley, a Distinguished Teaching Professor in the School of Music at the University of Texas, was named 2014 Teacher of the Year by the Music Teachers National Association. Professor Hilley joined the faculty at the University of Texas in 1982. She served for five years as associate director of the School of Music.

Professor Hilley is co-author of Piano for the Developing Musician, now in its sixth edition, and Piano for Pleasure: A Basic Course for Adults, now in its fourth edition.

Denise Malloy, adviser for pre-law and pre-med students at Montana State University, received the Outstanding New Advising Award from the National Academic Advising Association. Malloy has been at Montana State for the past two years.

A former Peace Corps volunteer in Western Samoa, Malloy holds a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree in counseling, and a law degree, all from the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

Allison Joseph, professor and director of the master of fine arts degree program in creative writing at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, received the Paladin Award from the literary journal Rhino Poetry.

Professor Joseph is a graduate of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. She earned a master of fine arts degree from Indiana University.

Alison Chapman, associate professor of English at the University of Alabama Birmingham, received the Outstanding Advising Award in the faculty academic advising category from the National Academic Advising Association.

Dr. Chapman teaches courses in English poetry and prose of the Renaissance period. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Velma McBride Murry, the Lois Autrey Betts Professor of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, has been selected to receive the 2014 Community, Culture, and Prevention Science Award from the Society of Prevention Research. She is being honored for her work in HIV prevention.

Professor Murry is a graduate of the University of Tennessee. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. at the University of Missouri. She has been on the Vanderbilt faculty since 2008 and previously taught at the University of Georgia.