Notable Honors or Awards for 10 Women in Higher Education

Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania, is the recipient of the Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement from the Pennsylvania Society. She is honored for “her remarkable leadership in Pennsylvania, and her distinguished representation of Pennsylvania’s ingenuity to the world,” according to Pennsylvania Society President Robert J. Ciaruffoli Jr.

Dr. Gutmann is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard-Radcliffe College. She holds a master’s degree in political science from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University.

Susanne Caro, a government information librarian at North Dakota State University Libraries, has received the Government Documents Round Table award from the American Library Association for the book she edited: Governments Information Essentials (American Library Association, 2017). The award is presented annually for outstanding published research in which government information forms a substantial part of the work.

Caro holds a master of library science degree from Texas Woman’s University.

Kathy Sherman-Morris, an associate professor and director of the geosciences distance education programs at Mississippi State University, has received the 2019 Excellence in Teaching Award from the University Professional and Continuing Education Association. She is honored for her outstanding contributions to the association and the field.

Dr. Sherman-Morris is a graduate of Mansfield University in Pennsylvania where she majored in social studies education. She holds a master’s degree in geosciences with a concentration in broadcast meteorology from Mississippi State University and a Ph.D. in geography from Florida State University.

Andrea Porter, assistant dean for student services at the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ohio Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. The award recognizes “an individual as espousing the best social work values and accomplishments throughout their career.”

Professor Porter holds a master’s degree in social administration from Case Western Reserve University.

Jackie Sibblies Drury, a lecturer in playwriting at the Yale School of Drama, has received the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play, Fairview. The judges described the play as “a hard-hitting drama that examines race in a highly conceptual, layered structure, ultimately bringing audiences into the actors’ community to face deep-seated prejudices.”

Drury is a graduate of Yale University. She holds a master of fine arts degree in playwriting from Brown University.

Susan Rubin Suleiman, the former C. Douglas Research Professor of the Civilization of France and Research Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, has received the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest decoration, in recognition of her work and personal connection to France and its people. She is the author of The Némirovsky Question: The Life, Death, and Legacy of a Jewish Writer in Twentieth-Century France (Yale University Press, 2016). The book examines the life of novelist Irène Némirovsky and her relationship to Judaism, her Jewish background, and the issues of “foreignness” in 20th-century France.

Dr. Suleiman is a graduate of Barnard College in New York City where she majored in French. She holds a Ph.D. in French literature from Harvard University.

The University of Georgia College of Education has launched an initiative to name the college for Mary Frances Early, the University of Georgia’s first African American graduate. A native of Atlanta, Early came to the university in the summer of 1961. Earlier that year, Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Hamilton Holmes became the first African American students to enroll at UGA.

Early had started postgraduate work at the University of Michigan when she transferred to complete her studies. She became the first African American to earn a degree from the University of Georgia when she graduated on August 16, 1962, with a master’s degree in music education. She returned in 1964 to continue her education, earning a Specialist in Education degree in 1967.

Joanne Kurtzberg, the Jerome Harris Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and director of the Marcus Center for Cellular Cures at Duke University in North Carolina, has received the 2019 Bernard Sanberg Memorial Award from the American Society for Neural Therapy and Repair. The award honors Dr. Kurtzberg’s distinguished career in pediatrics and regenerative medicine. She is an internationally renowned in pediatric hematology and oncology, pediatric blood and marrow transplantation, umbilical cord blood banking and transplantation as well as cellular therapies and regenerative medicine.

Dr. Kurtzberg holds a medical doctorate from New York University.

Jodi Cooley, an associate professor of experimental particle physics at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, is the recipient of the 2019 Klopsteg Memorial Lecture Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers. The award recognizes educators who have made notable and creative contributions to the teaching of physics. Dr. Cooley’s current research focuses on improving the understanding of the universe by deciphering the nature of dark matter.

Dr. Cooley is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she majored in applied mathematics and physics. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Heather Silber Mohamed, an assistant professor of political science at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, has received the 2019 Latino/a Caucus Early Career Award from the Midwest Political Science Association. The award recognizes pre-tenure Latino politics scholars who have contributed significant research to the discipline. Dr. Mohamed’s research interests include immigrant socialization and participation, immigration policy, and identity politics in the U.S., with a focus on the influence of race, class, and gender. She is the author of The New Americans?: Immigration, Protest, and the Politics of Latino Identity (University Press of Kansas, 2017).

Dr. Mohamed is a graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. She holds a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a master’s degree and Ph.D. both from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.