Ten Women Scholars Selected for Prestigious Honors and Awards

Joan Rose, who holds the Homer Nowlin Chair in Water Research at Michigan State University, was named as the recipient of the Stockholm Water Prize, considered the world’s most prestigious award in water studies. Professor Rose is being honored for her work on microbial risk to human health in water supplies. She will receive the prize in August from Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden.

Professor Rose has been on the faculty at Michigan State since 2003 after teaching at the University of South Florida. She holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Arizona and a master’s degree in microbiology from the University of Wyoming.

Mai Der Vang, who teaches creative writing at Clovis Community College in New Mexico, has been selected to receive the 2016 Walt Whitman Award from the American Academy of Poets. As a result, Vang’s poetry collection, Aftermath, will be published by Graywolf Press in April 2017.

Vang is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where she majored in English. She earned a master of fine arts degree in poetry at Columbia University in New York City.

Micheline T.H. Chi, the Dorothy Bray Endowed Professor of Science and Teaching in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, has been selected to receive the Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award from the American Educational Research Association. Dr. Chi will be honored at the association’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on April 10.

A native of Indonesia, Professor Chi earned a Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Natalya Delcoure, dean of the College of Business Administration at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, received the Outstanding Educator Award from the Federation of Business Disciplines. Dean Delcoure has held her present post since 2013. Earlier, she was associate dean and an endowed professor at the Graduate School of Business at San Jose State University in California.

Dr. Delcoure is a graduate of Moscow State University of Railway Engineering in Russia. She earned an MBA at the University of Louisiana-Monroe and a doctorate in business administration at Louisiana Tech University.

Maxine Hong Kingston, senior lecturer emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, has been selected as the recipient of the Pearl S. Buck Award, presented by Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia. The award is given to a woman who exemplifies the ideals, values, and commitments of Pearl S. Buck, who graduated from Randolph College in 1914.

Kingston is best known for her books The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (Alfred A. Knopf, 1976) and China Men (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980). She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and taught for many years at the University of Hawaii.

Deborah Verstegen, professor of education policy and finance at the University of Nevada Reno received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the National Education Finance Conference. Professor Verstegen joined the faculty at the university in 2014 after teaching for nearly two decades at the University of Virginia.

Dr. Verstegen earned a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lisa Kay, an assistant professor in the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia, received the Peter J. Geisser Special Needs Art Educator of the Year Award from the National Art Education Association.

Dr. Kay earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in graphic design and a master’s degree in art therapy at the University of Memphis. She holds an educational doctorate from Northern Illinois University.

Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, an associate professor of public relations in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia, was selected as the winner of the Charles E. Scripps Journalism and Mass Communication Teacher of the Year Award from the Scripps Howard Foundation. She will be honored with a $10,000 prize at the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Minneapolis this summer.

Dr. Acosta-Alzuru joined the faculty at the University of Georgia in 1999. She is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she majored in computer science. Dr. Acosta-Alzuru earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in mass communication at the University of Georgia.

Patricia Green-Powell, associate dean for student affairs and a professor of educational leadership at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, received the Sadie M. Yancey Professional Service Award from the National Association of Student Affairs Professionals.

Dr. Green-Powell earned a bachelor’s degree in speech pathology and audiology at Florida A&M University. She holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in educational administration and leadership from Florida State University.

Kathleen M. Rasmussen, the Nancy Schlegel Meinig Professor of Maternal and Child Nutrition at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, received the Macy-Gyorgy Award from the International Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation at the society’s annual convention in South Africa.

Professor Rasmussen is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she majored in molecular biology. She holds master’s and doctoral degrees in nutrition from Harvard University.