Six Women Scholars Selected to Receive Distinguished Awards

Li-Huei Tsai, the Picower Professor of Neuroscience and the director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was named as the recipient of the Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Neuroscience. The award recognizes notable scientists who have actively promoted the advancement of women in neuroscience.

Professor Tsai joined the faculty at MIT in 2006 after teaching in the department of pathology at Harvard Medical School. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Ami Radunskaya, professor of mathematics at Pomona College in Claremont, California, has been selected to receive the 2016 Mentor Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her work to increase the number of women pursuing doctorates in mathematics. She has been a member of the faculty at Pomona College for two decades.

After graduating from high school, Dr. Radunskaya spent 10 years studying the cello and composing music. She then received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Stanford University.

Michelle Brown, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, has been named the 2016 Critical Criminologist of the Year by the American Society of Criminology. Dr. Brown joined the faculty at the University of Tennessee in 2011. She is the co-author of Criminology Goes to the Movies: Crime Theory and Popular Culture (New York University Press, 2011).

Dr. Brown holds a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature, a master’s degree in criminal justice, and a Ph.D. in criminal justice and American studies, all from Indiana University in Bloomington.

Patricia Vittum, associate director of the Center for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, was chosen to receive the Col. John Morley Distinguished Service Award from the Golf Course Superintendent Association of America. She is the first woman to receive the award since its inception in 1932. Dr. Vittum will be honored in Orlando, Florida, in February for her expertise in turfgrass management.

Dr. Vittum is a graduate of the College of Wooster in Ohio. She earned a Ph.D. in entomology at Cornell University in 1980 and joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts that year.

Kathleen Lane, professor of special education at the University of Kansas, has been selected to receive the 2017 Kauffman-Hallahan Distinguished Researcher Award from the Council for Exceptional Children. She is being honored for her research on children with emotional or behavioral disorders.

Dr. Lane joined the faculty at the University of Kansas in 2012. She holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, all from the University of California, Riverside.

Rachel Halverson, chair of the department of modern languages and cultures at the University of Idaho, was selected as the winner of the Checkpoint Charlie Foundation Teacher Award. The honor is presented to an outstanding teacher of the German language who was not born or raised in Germany. Dr. Halverson will be honored in Berlin this coming June.

Professor Halverson joined the faculty at the University of Idaho earlier this year after teaching at Washington State University for 26 years. She holds a master’s degree in German and a doctorate in German literature from the University of Texas.