Four Women Faculty Members Honored With Notable Awards

Kathryn Kirkpatrick, a professor of English at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, received the Brockman-Campbell Book Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society. Professor Kirkpatrick was honored for her poetry collection Her Small Hands Were Not Beautiful (Clemson University Digital Press, 2014).

Professor Kirkpatrick is a graduate of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. She holds a master’s degree in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. in liberal arts from Emory University in Atlanta.

Meredith Hughes, assistant professor of astronomy at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, received the 2015 Bok Prize in Astronomy from Harvard University. The award is given to a holder of a Ph.D. in the physical sciences under the age of 35.

Dr. Hughes is an expert on planetary formation. She is a graduate of Yale University and holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University.

Tonia Dousay, an assistant professor of instructional technology at the University of Wyoming, received the 2015 Best Practice Award from the Division of Distance Learning of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. Dr. Dousay will be honored at the association’s annual convention in Indianapolis this November for an “outstanding contribution to the scholarship and knowledge base” of instructional technology.

Dr. Dousay holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Texas A&M University. She earned a Ph.D. in learning, design, and technology at the University of Georgia.

Yan Jin, a professor in the department of plant and soil sciences at the University of Delaware, received the 2015 Don and Betty Kirkham Soil Physics Award from the Soil Science Society of America. Professor Jin is the first women to be honored in the 18-year history of the award.

Professor Jin has been on the faculty at the University of Delaware since 1995. She is a graduate of Hebei Agricultural University in China. Dr. Jin holds a master’s degree in soil chemistry from New Mexico State University and a Ph.D. in environmental toxicology from the University of California, Riverside.