Employee awards, honors and accolades for spring term 2021

May 18 – Cheyney Ryan, professor emeritus of law, was recognized for his human rights work by Quinnipiac University. He was given an honorary doctor of humane letters for his “impact as a leading scholar on the frontier of peace and conflict studies and numerous awards for human rights activism.” Ryan co-founded the conflict resolution master’s program at the UO and previously oversaw the Savage Endowment in International Relations and Peace.

May 10 – Gina Herrmann, professor of Spanish and Norman H. Brown Faculty Fellow, has been awarded a residential fellowship at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France. The program awards international fellowships in the arts and humanities and supports academic and artistic inquiry.  Herrmann will spend fall term working on a project about current refugees and similarities to earlier migration policies, particularly in the French concentration camps of World War II

May 4 – Jon Bellona, instructor of audio production, has been recognized for the piece “Sunken Shoreline” by the International Competition for Ecoacoustic Music. The award is a partnership between the Coastal Futures Conservatory at the University of Virginia and EcoSono, an environmental sound nonprofit, focused on pursuing imaginative sound art for a sustainable future.

April 27 – Judith Raiskin, associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, and Linda Long, curator of manuscripts, earned the Oregon Heritage Excellence Award from the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department for the Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project. The award recognizes the project for “documenting and preserving the contributions of the Eugene lesbian community to Oregon’s enduring cultural, political, and social innovations.”

April 27 – Brian Trapp, career instructor in creative writing and director of the Kidd Program was named a Steinbeck Fellow at San José State University. The award of $15,000 and residency allows fellows to finish a significant writing project.

April 20 – Shabnam Akhtari, associate professor of mathematics, has earned the Ruth I. Michler Memorial Prize from the Association for Women in Mathematics. Akhtari will pursue her research on classical Diophantine equations with a residential fellowship for a semester in the Cornell University Mathematics Department.

April 20 – Jeff Diez, associate professor of biology, was awarded the 2021 George Mercer Award from the Ecological Society of America. The award recognizes the research paper, “Disentangling the abundance–impact relationship for invasive species.”

March 30 – Brendan Bohannan, biology professor, has been named a fellow by the Ecological Society of America. The recognition is awarded to society members who have made outstanding contributions to advancing or applying ecological knowledge. Bohannan was recognized for his fundamental contributions to the unification of microbiology and ecology, for his exceptional mentorship of microbial ecologists and for his exceptional service on the society’s governing council and as journal editor.

March 30 – Zachary DuBois, assistant professor of anthropology, has been awarded the 2021 Michael A. Little Early Career Award from the from the Human Biology Association. The award recognizes a member for significant contribution to the field of human biology.

March 30 – Jennifer Pfeifer, psychology professor, has been named as a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. Fellow status is awarded to association members who have made sustained outstanding contributions to the science of psychology in the areas of research, teaching, service, and/or application. 


Each term Around the O Workplace will recognize awards, honors and other professional recognition of University of Oregon faculty, staff, and graduate employees. Submissions should be brief and include a link to the award website.