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Faculty Recognition 2021

 

Dear Colleagues in the Arts and Sciences,

During this past academic year, we have faced challenges that none of us could have imagined. We have mourned the loss of lives in our Dartmouth community, in our country, and across the world to illness, violence, and despair. Through all of this you have persevered, holding fast to the core elements of Dartmouth's teacher-scholar model by continuing to push the boundaries of ground-breaking scholarship, creative work, and inspired teaching.

The excitement we all share in anticipating a fully in-person fall term, where we can come together with each other and with our students, has been uplifting. I look forward to seeing you all and to begin reknitting the fabric of our campus community.

As we transition to a new academic year, I would like to recognize those faculty members who this past year were promoted or appointed to an endowed chair, as well as those who received awards or grants from the office of the Dean of the Faculty and from the centers and institutes (Leslie, Rockefeller, and Neukom) within Arts and Sciences. 

Please join me in congratulating those who have been appointed to an endowed chair:

  • Liz Cascio (Economics), DeWalt H. 1921 & Marie H. Ankeny Professorship in Economic Policy
  • Michael Chaney (English and Creative Writing), Edward Hyde Cox Professorship
  • Tarek El-Ariss (Middle Eastern Studies), James Wright Professorship
  • Kristina Lynch (Physics & Astronomy), Ira Allen Eastman Professorship
  • Brendan Nyhan (Government), James O. Freedman Presidential Professorship
  • Reiko Ohnuma (Religion), Robert 1932 and Barbara Black Professorship

In congratulating those who have been promoted to Full Professor:

  • Joshua Bennett (English and Creative Writing)
  • Elizabeth Cascio (Economics)
  • William Cheng (Music)
  • Sienna Craig (Anthropology)
  • Christiane Donahue (Linguistics)
  • Robert Hawley (Earth Sciences)
  • John Kulvicki (Philosophy)
  • Laura Ogden (Anthropology)
  • Lucas Swaine (Government)
  • Benjamin Valentino (Government)
  • Jimmy Wu (Chemistry)

And in congratulating those who have been promoted to Associate Professor:

  • Asher Auel, (Mathematics)
  • Zahra Ayubi, (Religion)
  • Deeparnab Chakrabarty, (Computer Science)
  • Darlene Drummond, (Speech, Institute for Writing and Rhetoric)
  • Feng Fu, (Mathematics)
  • Michael Hoppa, (Biological Sciences)
  • Chelsey Kivland, (Anthropology)
  • Nick Miller, (Government)
  • Jennifer Miller, (History)
  • Katherine Mirica, (Chemistry)
  • Kimberly Rogers (Sociology)
  • Sachi Schmidt-Hori, (Asian Societies Cultures and Languages)
  • Zaneta Thayer, (Anthropology)
  • Sean Westwood, (Government)

Each year we recognize those colleagues who have achieved some great success in teaching or some extraordinary act of scholarship or service.  For the 2020–2021 school year, we celebrate:

  • Erich Osterberg (Earth Sciences), Frank J. Guarini Award for Extraordinary Contribution to Off-Campus Programs
  • Michele Tine (Education), Jerome Goldstein Award for Distinguished Teaching
  • Michael Hoppa (Biological Sciences) and Kimberly Rogers (Sociology), John M. Manley Huntington Award for Newly Tenured Faculty
  • Sienna Craig (Anthropology) and Laura Ogden (Anthropology), John M. Manley Huntington Award for Newly Promoted Faculty
  • Roger Sloboda (Biological Sciences), Robert A. Fish 1918 Memorial Prize
  • Katherine Mirica (Chemistry) and Joshua Bennett (English and Creative Writing), Karen Wetterhahn Memorial Award for Distinguished Creative or Scholarly Achievement
  • Ann Bumpus (Philosophy), Dean of the Faculty Teaching Award
  • Feng Fu (Mathematics), Dean of the Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentoring and Advising
  • Michael Herron (Government), Elizabeth Howland Hand-Otis Norton Pierce Award
  • Katherine Nautiyal (PBS), Class of 1962 Faculty Fellowship

Senior Faculty Grants promote the pursuit of study and research in a new field outside of an accustomed area of study. Most applicants seek support for research projects of unusual promise, research likely to lead to publication.  For this year, we acknowledge:

  • Randall Balmer (Religion), The Last Evangelical: The Life of Mark O. Hatfield
  • Michael Casey (Music/Computer Science), Sonic Pharmacology: The Neural Basis of Music Medicine (Book)
  • Nate Dominy (Anthropology), to explore how firelight brings stories into focus—for 'focus' is Latin for hearth, a word that emphasizes the convening power of fire and its role as a visual and social stimulus.
  • Ed Miller (History), Re-interpreting the Vietnam War as a Civil War
  • Nina Pavcnik (Economics), Foreign direct investment (FDI) and the transition to adulthood
  • Steve Swayne (Music), recipient of the Professor Arthur M. Wilson and Mary Tolford Wilson Faculty Research Fellowship for a book on composer David Diamond, utilizing the archival materials at the Library of Congress

Scholarly Innovation and Advancement Awards provide flexible resources to support development of promising initiatives that would not be rapidly or routinely funded by other mechanisms.  This year we look forward to the promising work of:

  • Ashley Fure (Music), Archiving the Immersive: Expanding Access to Experiential Art
  • Michael Ganio (Theater), On the art of puppetry
  • Jodie Mack (Film & Media Studies), Medi-Cine (working title): a feature animated documentary
  • Bethany Moreton (History), Documenting the Undocumented in Mississippi
  • Paul Novosad (Economics), "Unlocking 21st Century Data Sources to Study Women's Empowerment in India"
  • Peter Orner, (English and Creative Writing), No Refuge for Me Under You: The Life and Legacy of Hendrik Witbooi
  • Jonathan Smolin (Middle Eastern Studies), "Father Is Dead: Exposure, Scandal, and Humiliation in Post-June 1967 Uncensored Lebanese Media"

In response to the call for proposals for Innovative Courses on the subjects of racial inequality, racial justice and/or anti-racism activism, the following courses were selected for further development:

  • Russ Muirhead (Professor, GOVT) and David Plunkett (Associate Professor, PHIL): Race, Justice, and the Law
  • Michelle Clarke (Associate Professor, GOVT) and Jonathan Smolin (Associate Professor, MES): The Intellectual History of Racism: From Antiquity to America
  • Ayo Coly (Professor, COLT/AAAS) and Mark Williams (Associate Professor, FILM): The Idea of Africa: Deconstructing Race in the Iconography of a Continent
  • Matthew Garcia (Professor, HIST/LALACS) and Eng-Beng Lim (Associate Professor, WGSS): Inside the Funhouse: Race, Fame, and Sexuality in American Culture
  • Mingwei Huang (Assistant Professor, WGSS) and Jorge Cuéllar (Assistant Professor, LALACS): Global Race x Global Migration

•     Julia Rabig (Associate Professor, HIST) and Bryan Winston (Postdoctoral Fellow, Dartmouth Digital History Initiative): Dartmouth Black Lives: An Oral History Course and Digital Humanities Project

In addition to those awards and funds disbursed directly from the Office of the Dean of Faculty, the Faculty of the Arts and Sciences also has access to funding from a number of specialized centers and institutes.  This year Leslie, Rockefeller, and Neukom funded the following colleagues and projects:

Leslie Center for the Humanities

  • Co-sponsorship of symposia, conferences, lecture series, film series, special events, and community projects:  Daniel Behar (Jewish Studies), Shamell Bell (AAAS), Mary Coffey (Art History), Ayo Coly (AAAS), Laura Edmondson (WGSS), Tarek El-Ariss (Middle Eastern Studies), Cecilia Gaposchkin (History), Gerd Gemunden (German Studies), Daveen Litwin (Tucker Center), Najwa Mayer (WGSS), Lynn Patyk (Russian), Donald Pease, Jr. (English and Creative Writing), Israel Reyes (Spanish and Portuguese), Scott Sanders (French and Italian), Analola Santana (Spanish and Portuguese)
  • Faculty Research Grants: 
  • Carmen Bascunan (Spanish and Portuguese), "La Voz de Iris"
  • Maria De Greiff (Spanish and Portuguese), "Hands that Speak, Voices from the Upper Valley Dairy Farms"
  • Deborah Forger (Jewish Studies), "The Embodied God in Early Jewish Tradition"
  • Humanities Lab Grants:
  • Noelia Cirnigliaro (Spanish and Portuguese), "Tango Argentino:  Music, Dance, Poetry, Community"
  • Project Grants: 
      • Paul Christensen (Classics), "The Oxford History of the Archaic World"
      • Carolyn Dever (English and Creative Writing), "Works and Days: the Michael Field digital diary"
      • Douglas Moody (Spanish and Portuguese), "LATS 37 Mural Project with Visiting Artists"
      • Graziella Parati (French and Italian), "Diversity and Decolonization in Italian Studies Roundtable Discussions"
      • Sachi Schmidt-Hori (ASCL), "Springboard Japan: Democratization of Humanistic Knowledge Production"
      • Zenovia Toloudi (Studio Art), "Interrogative Design and the Science Fiction of the Present: Public Space, Art, Technology, and Education"

Nelson A. Rockefeller Center Faculty Grant Awards

  • Gregory Sharp and Emily Walton (Sociology), "Activity Spaces, Community Resource Brokers, and Adult Health"
  • Chelsey Kivland (Anthropology) and Alka Dev (Geisel), "Insecure birth: Framing everyday violence, pregnancy, and birth in Port-au-Prince, Haiti"

Neukom Institute for Computational Sciences CompX Faculty Grant Awards (2021–2022)

  • Jesse Casana (Anthropology), "Remote Sensing of Ancestral Abenaki Settlement in the Upper Connecticut River Valley"
  • Valentin Demidov (Geisel), "Fast GPU-Based Texture Analysis of Flash Radiotherapy-Induced Skin Sparing"
  • Emily Finn (PBS), "Computational Modeling of Ambiguity Resolution Within and Across Individuals"
  • Robert Hill (Biological Sciences), "Elucidating the Structure and Function of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Connectivity in the Neocortex"
  • Michael Hoppa (Biological Sciences), "Deciding Synaptic Transmission with Light"
  • Rebecca Johnson (QSS), "Optimizing Schools? The Empirics and Ethics of Algorithmic Prioritization in K-12 Schooling"
  • Aaron McKenna (Molecular and Systems Biology), Computationally Mapping Cancer Development Cell-by-Cell"
  • Simone Oppen (Classics), "Towards a Digital Corpus of Corinthian Vase Inscriptions"
  • Marisa Palucis and Edward Meyer (Earth Sciences), "Snap, Crackle, Pop: Quantifying Frost Cracking in the Arctic"
  • Brian Pogue (Thayer), "Total Body Visualization of Radiation Dose with Computer Animation"

With best wishes,

Elizabeth

Elizabeth F. Smith, Ph.D.
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Paul M. Dauten Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences