Six Women Academics Honored With Notable Awards

Donna Shalala, president of the University of Miami and former secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration, has been selected by the American Association of University Women as a Woman of Distinction for the 2013 National Conference for College Women Student Leaders. The conference will be held at the University of Maryland College Park from May 30-June 1, 2013. More information on the conference is available here.

Mary Lou Soffa, the Owens R. Cheatham Professor of Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia, received the Ken Kennedy Award from the Association for Computing Machinery-IEEE Computer Society. She was honored for her work to detect and manage software security flaws.

Professor Soffa is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, where she majored in mathematics. She earned a master’s degree in mathematics at Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh.

Pamela Hallock-Muller, professor of marine science at the University of South Florida, received the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Minority Ph.D. Mentor of the Year Award. She was also chosen as a fellow of the Paleontological Society.

Professor Hallock-Muller has been on the faculty at the University of South Florida since 1983 and was promoted to full professor in 1988. She is a graduate of the University of Montana and holds a master degree and a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of Hawaii.

Mary Anne Fitzpatrick, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Carolina, received the Mark L. Knapp Award in Interpersonal Communication at the 98th annual convention of the National Communication Association in Orlando, Florida.

Dr. Fitzpatrick joined the faculty of the University of South Carolina in 2005. Previously, she served for 25 years on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Elizabeth Andress, professor of foods and nutrition in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Georgia, is the recipient of the 2012 National Award for Excellence in Extension. She was honored for her work in food safety and preservation.

Dr. Andress is a graduate of Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania. She hold a master’s degree from Virginia Tech and a Ph.D. in food science from Pennsylvania State University.

Michelle Scollo, an assistant professor of communication at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York, received the Outstanding Publication Award for Language and Social Interaction Scholarship from the National Communication Association. Dr. Scollo was honored for her article “Cultural Approaches to Discourse Analysis,” which appeared in the Journal of Multicultural Discourses.

Dr. Scollo is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.