Four Academic Women Selected for Notable Honors and Awards

Martha C. Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, has been selected to give the 2017 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Being selected as the Jefferson Lecturer is the highest honored bestowed by the federal government for intellectual achievement in the humanities.

Professor Nussbaum is a graduate of New York University. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Wanda Spurlock, professor in the School of Nursing and Allied Health at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Black Nurses Association. The association, founded in 1972, represents 150,000 members with 92 chartered chapters in 35 states.

Dr. Spurlock is a graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond and holds master’s and doctoral degrees in nursing.

Ellen Thomas, University Professor and research professor of earth and environmental sciences at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, received the 2016 Brady Medal from the Micropalaeontological Society.

Professor Thomas holds a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and a Ph.D., all from the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands.

Carmen Robinson, director of undergraduate education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has been announced as the winner of the 2017 Bonita C. Jacobs Transfer Champion Rising Star Award from the National Institution for the Study of Transfer Students. She will be honored in February in Atlanta at the organization’s national conference.

Dr. Robinson holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Central Arkansas. She earned a second master’s degree from the University of Memphis and an educational doctorate from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.