Awards and honors

Jennifer Reeder, filmmaker and associate professor of moving image, was one of 46 recipients of $50,000 awards from Creative Capital.

Awards

Karen Patena, associate professor of health information management in the College of Applied Health Sciences, received an “Above and Beyond” award from the American Health Information Management Association for completing five years of service on the Certification Commission for Health Informatics and Information Management.

Novelist Luis Alberto Urrea professor of English and distinguished professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, won the 2014 Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society’s A Legend in His/Her Own Time Award. The award recognizes excellence in literature, journalism, music, art, community service or philanthropy.

Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar, professor and head of occupational therapy, Joy Hammel, professor of occupational therapy, Robin Jones, disabilities and human development project director and instructor, and Carson Mumma, occupational therapy student, launched a Therapists Without Borders program at the Center Ann Sullivan of Peru. During a one-week immersion experience, the team, all from the College of Applied Health Sciences, worked with five participants and their parents on issues of participation, accessibility and mobility, trained more than 50 staff on how to develop low-budget adaptations to increase participation by the center’s students, conducted a healthiness workshop for 350 parents, and engaged in several consultation projects.

Luis Alberto Urrea received the 2014 Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society’s A Legend in His/Her Own Time Award.

Jennifer Reeder, filmmaker and associate professor of moving image, was one of 46 recipients of $50,000 awards from Creative Capital, which grants the awards annually after an eight-month review of the artist’s work. The awards includes career development services.

Winners of the 2014 Alice J. Dan Dissertation Award, for original and significant research about gender and/or women by doctoral students, are Molly McGown, anthropology department, for “Making Moral Mothers Through Group Care: Biopower and the Social Production of Reproductive Health Knowledge,” Norma Jane Mejias, disability and human development department, “The Role of Support Group Involvement in the Self-Concept of Women With Disabilities,” and Cara Smulevitz, departments of art history and gender and women’s studies, “Girl, If You Make the Movie, I Promise Somebody Will See It.” The award includes monetary support for research.

Honors

Negar Mansourian-Hadavi, undergraduate program development specialist in the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Affairs, was designated one of “15 Women to Watch in 2015” by Today’s Chicago Woman.

Allyson Holbrook, associate professor of public administration in the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, was named president of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research. Tim Johnson, director of the Survey Research Lab, was appointed a fellow of the association.