People: awards & appointments
Walter Podrazik, visiting lecturer in communication, hosted a chat session as part of the CNN’s history and artifact exhibition, “A Look Into The Sixties” at Grand Central’s Vanderbilt Hall in New York City. Photo: Roberta Dupuis-Devlin/UIC Photo Services
Appointments
Phil Weiler, assistant vice president for marketing services at the University of Oregon, was named senior executive director of marketing and brand management in the Office of Public and Government Affairs. His appointment, effective June 30, is subject to the approval of the Board of Trustees.
Weiler was director of communications for the City of Eugene, Oregon, for 10 years before joining Symantec Corp. as senior public relations manager.
Since joining the University of Oregon in 2006, he has been senior director of communications and assistant vice president for strategic communications.
He led the university’s institutional branding initiative and guided communications strategy for a major fundraising campaign, several construction projects and the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Track and Field Trials.
Andrea Ballinger was named vice president and chief information officer of the University of Illinois Alumni Association. Ballinger was chief technology officer and associate vice president for administrative technologies at Illinois State University.
Eugene Fregetto, clinical associate professor of managerial studies, was appointed associate editor of the Journal of Small Business Strategy.
Awards
College of Medicine at Rockford students Sheila Chang and Mina Tanaka received the U.S. Public Health Service 2014 Excellence in Public Health Award. The honor recognizes their work to improve the health and well-being of children and families in the Rockford area.
Bob Liden, professor of managerial studies, received the Thomas A. Mahoney Mentoring Award for 2014. The award, presented by the Human Resources Division of the Academy of Management, is given for outstanding mentoring to doctoral students.
The Institute for the Humanities has selected two dissertation fellows, a post-doctoral fellow and six faculty fellows for 2014-15.
Dissertation fellows are:
• Melissa Hibbard, history, “Children of the Polish Republic: Child Health, Welfare, and the Shaping of Modern Poland, 1914-1939”
• Saniye Vatansever, philosophy, “Kant on the Necessity of Empirical Laws.”
Faculty fellows are:
• Joaquin Chavez, assistant professor of history, “Imagining Peace in El Salvador”
• Malgorzata Fidelis, assistant professor of history, “The Sixties behind the Iron Curtain: Youth Cultures and the Search for Freedom in Poland in the Global Sixties, 1954-1974”
• Rachel Havrelock, assistant professor of Jewish studies, “Pipeline: the Transport of Oil and the Making of the Modern Middle East”
• Rosilie Hernández, associate professor of Hispanic and Italian studies, “Immaculate Conceptions: Counter-Reformation Politics, Theology, and Art in Early Modern Spain”
• Timothy Murphy, professor of philosophy in biomedical science, “Moral Effects of Genetic Modification”
• Salome Aguilera Skvirsky, assistant professor of Latin American and Latino studies, “The Aesthetic of Labor: Work, Toil, and Utopia in Latin American Political Cinema.”
Priscilla McCutcheon, assistant professor of geography and Africana studies at the University of Connecticut, was named post-doctoral fellow in food studies. Her project concerns “Food, Race and Space in an African American Land Ethic.”
Peter Orris, professor and chief of service at the Great Lakes Center for Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety, received the 2014 Environmental Health Hero Award, the highest honor granted by Health Care Without Harm.
The award honors five individuals who have contributed to the development of sustainable health care. Orris received his award at the health care sustainability conference CleanMed, held June 2 to 5 in Cleveland.
Presentations
Walter Podrazik, visiting lecturer in communication, hosted a chat session May 28 as part of the CNN’s history and artifact exhibition, “A Look Into The Sixties” at Grand Central’s Vanderbilt Hall in New York City. Podrazik’s session, “The Whole World Watches: Media & Political Conventions in the 1960s,” was among a series of panels and discussions linked to CNN’s 10-part series “The Sixties.”
Scholarships
Environmental and occupational health and safety students Meghna Dhawan, Linh Phan, Margaret Sietsema and Jane Thomason were among 40 students nationwide to receive scholarships from the American Industrial Hygiene Foundation.
