Seven Women in Academia Selected for Prestigious Honors and Awards

Lauren Pond, the multimedia content producer for the American Religious Sounds Project at the Center for the Study of Religion at Ohio State University, has been selected to receive the First Book Prize in Photography presented by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and the Honickman Foundation. Pond’s book – Test of Faith – will be published by Duke University Press in November.

Pond is a graduate of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she double majored in art theory and practice and journalism. She holds a master’s degree in photography from Ohio University.

Rebecca J. White, a professor of entrepreneurship and director of the John P. Lowth Entrepreneurship Center at the University of Tampa in Florida, received the Max J. Wortman Lifetime Achievement Award for Entrepreneurship from the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

Dr. White is a graduate of Concord University in Athens, West Virginia. She holds an MBA and a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.

Lynne E. Maquat, the J. Lowell Orbison Endowed Professor in the department of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry has been selected to receive the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award in Science from the International RNA Society. Professor Maquat will be honored at the society’s annual meeting in Prague this June.

Dr. Maquat joined the faculty at the University of Rochester in 2000. She is a graduate of the University of Connecticut, where she majored in biology and holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Frances Arnold, the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry and the director of the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center at the California Institute of Technology, received the 2017 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Convergence Research from the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Arnold joined the faculty at CalTech in 1987. She is a graduate of Princeton University in New Jersey and holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jennifer McCann, director of U.S. coastal programs for the Coastal Resources Center at the University of Rhode Island, received a 2017 Peter Benchley Award. The award, named after the author of the novel Jaws, honors individuals who have committed their lives to working on important ocean and coastal issues. McCann will be honored at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington on May 11.

McCann is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, where she majored in Spanish and international relations. She holds a master’s degree in marine policy from the University of Rhode Island.

Renee A. Middleton, professor and dean of the College of Education at Ohio University in Athens, has been selected to receive the Edward C. Pomeroy Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teacher Education from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

Dr. Middleton is a graduate of Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Tennessee and a doctorate in rehabilitation administration from the College of Education at Auburn University in Alabama.

Kathleen Brown-Rice, an assistant professor of counselor education at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, has been selected to receive the 2017 Addictions/Offender Educator Excellence Award from the International Association of Addictions and Offender Counselors. Dr. Brown-Rice will be honored at the meeting of the American Counseling Association in San Francisco on March 17.

Dr. Brown-Rice is a graduate of the South Dakota School of Mines. She holds a master’s degree in counseling and human resource development from South Dakota State University and a Ph.D. in counseling and counselor education from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.