Arts and Sciences faculty members are leaders in their fields
Congratulations to our outstanding faculty! Below you can see the national and international honors and fellowships awarded to faculty across the disciplines of our school.
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James Abello (Computer Science) and coauthors received a Best Paper Award for "Graph Cities: Their Buildings, Waves, and Fragments,” BigVis21.
Victoria Abraira (Cell Biology and Neuroscience) was invited to speak as an awardee at the National Academy of Sciences for being recognized as the Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow.
Rosanne Altshuler (Economics) won the Daniel M. Holland Medal from the National Tax Association. The Holland Medal, the most prestigious award given by the National Tax Association, recognizes lifetime achievement in the study of the theory and practice of public finance
Eva Andrei (Physics and Astronomy) was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and named an honorary fellow of the Uzbekistani Physical Society.
Eva Andrei (Physics and Astronomy), and her group’s paper “Observation of a topological defect lattice in the charge density wave of 1T-TaS2,” was featured on the cover of Applied Physics Letters, September 20, 2021.
Sepehr Assadi (Computer Science) received a National Science Foundation CAREER award: "CAREER: Graph Streaming, Communication Games, and the Quest for Optimal Algorithms" and received the Google Research Scholar award: "Graph Clustering at Scale via Improved Massively Parallel Algorithms."
Mark Baker (Linguistics) was named a fellow of the Linguistic Society of America, January 2021.
Yesenia Barragan (History) received a 2022 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.
Laura Bassi (Art History), Editorial Grant Recipient (Jan 2021).
Kasia Bieszczad (Psychology) received the international 2021 Young Investigator Spotlight Award, from Advances and Progress in Auditory Neuroscience (APAN).
Blakesley Burkhart (Physics and Astronomy) was named a 2021 Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and was selected for the 2022 Maria Goeppert Mayer Award of the American Physical Society. This annual award recognizes the outstanding achievement of one woman physicist in the early years of her career each year.
Carla Cevasco (American Studies) and Maria Kennedy (American Studies), co-directors of the New Jersey Folk Festival, received a 2022 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support an event – advertised, planned, and produced by undergraduates – that celebrates the diverse multicultural and indigenous folklife of New Jersey and the surrounding region.
Richard Contrada (Psychology) was elected a fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and a fellow of the American Psychological Association, Div. 8.
Tom Devlin (Physics and Astronomy), Emeritus, is former advisor of Regina Abby Rameika, currently at Fermilab, who won the 2022 W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics of the American Physical Society, the Society’s highest honor in the field.
Frances Egan (Philosophy) was awarded the 2021 Jean Nicod prize and gave the Jean Nicod Lectures in Paris.
Maurice Elias (Psychology) received the Jane Bostrum Award for Service to School Psychology.
Mary Emenike (Chemistry and Chemical Biology) has been awarded an NSF DUE Improving Undergraduate STEM Education grant for "Coordinating a Teaching Excellence Network to Engage STEM Faculty in Teaching Reform."
Ying Fan Reinfelder (Earth and Planetary Sciences) was named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her distinguished contributions and leadership in continental-scale hydrology, particularly on the interactions between groundwater and near-surface systems, including vegetation and surface water.
Lynn Festa’s (English) book Fiction Without Humanity won the James Russell Lowell Prize from the Modern Language Association.
Alan Goldman (Chemistry and chemistry biology) was named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his distinguished contributions to the field of catalysis by transition-metal complexes, particularly the elucidation of reaction mechanisms and the development of catalysts for hydrocarbon functionalization.
Mark Gradwell (Cell Biology and Neuroscience), a postdoctoral fellow in Victoria Abraira’s lab, received NJ Commission on Spinal Cord Fellowship.
Charles Haberl (African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literature) took up the position of the President of the International Linguistic Association for a three-year term in April 2021.
Jessica Hamilton (Psychology) is the recipient of the Association for Psychological Science 2021 Rising Star Award.
Jason V. Henderson, MMS, JD (Kinesiology and Health) received the prestigious national coaching award, the "Division I Men's Team Coach of the Year" by the United States Fencing Coaches Association in Spring 2021.
Rafiq Huda (Cell Biology and Neuroscience) was awarded the Brain Research Foundation Seed Grant; Parkinson’s Foundation Impact Award; American Parkinson Disease Association Research Grant; and the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation NARSAD Young Investigator Award.
Jack Hughes (Physics and Astronomy) has been elected a 2021 Fellow of the American Astronomical Society. Hughes has the distinction of being in the first class of annually elected Fellows of the AAS. AAS Fellows are recognized for their contributions toward the Society's mission of enhancing and sharing humanity's scientific understanding of the universe.
Jack Hughes (Physics and Astronomy) was co-author on the publication “High-entropy ejecta plumes in Cassiopeia A from neutrino-driven convection,” which was selected for the cover page of the international scientific journal Nature.
Enver C. Izgu (Chemistry and Chemical Biology) has been awarded the Trailblazer Award for New and Early Stage Investigators, The National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Project title: Activity-Based Aptamers as Bioimaging Tools for Probing Organics, Inorganics, and Enzymes.
Michael Kenwick (Political Science) was part of a team that won the American Political Science Association’s J. David Singer Data Innovation Award for their collaborative study “Militarized Interstate Disputes Data Project.”
Mona Lena Krook (Political Science) won the American Political Science Association’s Distinguished Award for Civic and Community Engagement, honoring significant civic or community engagement activity by a political scientist, alone or in collaboration with others, which explicitly merges knowledge and practice and goes beyond research to have an impact outside of the profession or the academy.
Mona Lena Krook (Political Science) won the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order for exploring the nature of violence against women in politics and suggesting ways to prevent it. She was given this very prestigious award for ideas set forth in Violence Against Women in Politics: A Global Phenomenon, her 2020 book published by Oxford University Press.
Nelson Maldonado-Torres (Comparative Literature and Latino Caribbean Studies) and Carter Mathes (English) received a Luce Foundation grant supporting the Rutgers Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies for a project entitled “Understanding Spirit: Black Religious Practice and the Search for Racial Justice” and will run from May 2022 to July 2025.
David Margolis’ (Cell Biology and Neuroscience) graduate fellow Branden Sanabria was awarded an NIH F31 Training grant.
Andy Mastbaum (Physics and Astronomy) received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award, in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.
Tara Matise (Genetics) was named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her distinguished contributions to developing human genetic maps and for critical efforts to bring genetics to diverse human populations.
Kristy McQuinn and Alyson Brooks (Physics and Astronomy) are on one of only 13 "Early Release Science" teams, chosen worldwide, for the Webb Space Telescope.
Jay Lim and Santosh Nagarakatte (Computer Science) received the ACM SIGPLAN PLDI 2021 Distinguished Paper Award for their paper "High Performance Correctly Rounded Libraries for 32-bit Floating Point Representations."
Jay Lim and Santosh Nagarakatte (Computer Science) have developed a collection of fast, yet correct math library functions for 32-bit floats, which is significantly faster than all mainstream libraries. This is a significant advance as everyone in science and engineering uses functions from these libraries.
Jed Pixley (Physics and Astronomy) was named a 2021 Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, one of only 128 fellowships awarded.
Jessica Rispoli (Genetics) will implement the Warren Alpert Foundation Consortium Grant to Increase Diversity in Genetic Counseling received by the Rutgers Genetic Counseling Master’s Program.
Javier Robles (Kinesiology and Health) served as a Commissioner on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems. Report released October 2021.
Sofia Gonzalez Salinas, (Genetics) a postdoc from Gleb Shumyatsky’s lab, received a one-year award from the American Association of University Women (AAUW).
Diana T. Sanchez (Psychology) was the inaugural recipient of the International Diversity Science Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology to recognize her substantial, innovative, and sustained contributions to advancing the social psychology of diversity.
Edward Selby (Psychology) received a substantial private donation through the Rutgers Foundation to support the creation of an “Emotional Cascade Smartphone App Intervention.” Funds will support the development and eventual distribution of a scientifically derived smartphone treatment app in major smartphone app stores (e.g., Apple, Android).
Tracey Shors, (Psychology) Distinguished Professor in Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology and Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers University was awarded the 2021 Horsley Gantt Medal from the Pavlovian Society. This award is given “in honor of the noble pursuit of truth” and to individuals who have made distinguished contributions to the fields of psychology, physiology, behavioral neuroscience, psychophysiology, mental health, or medicine.
Labros Sidossis (Kinesiology and Health) was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Kinesiology (2021), the nation’s preeminent Kinesiology institution, and President of the Mediterranean Lifestyle Medicine Institute, July 2021.
Andrew Singson (Genetics) was named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his distinguished contributions to the field of fertilization, particularly for discovery and characterization of genes required for fertilization in Caenorhabditis elegans.
Judith Surkis (History) received a 2022 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.
Max Tischfield (Cell Biology and Neuroscience) received a Tourette Association of America award to fund his research.
Elizabeth Torres (Psychology) was honored on February 11, 2021, when the Senate and General Assembly of New Jersey passed a Joint Legislative Resolution to recognize Dr. Torres as “an individual of strong character and exceptional determination,” commending the meritorious record of service, leadership, and commitment to leading initiatives that have transformed research and treatments of autism in New Jersey. Her work was awarded as groundbreaking interdisciplinary and innovative, playing a fundamental role in the integration of disparate areas of research and technology, and translating basic science to improve the lives of our community members. Dr. Torres was instrumental in helping to pass several legislations to provide insurance coverage for diverse therapeutic interventions, thus enabling low-income communities to afford multiple therapies for their children and extending as well the last year of college during the pandemic. The latter ensured continuation of treatments at the 21 years of age mark.
Elizabeth Torres (Psychology) was named IAspire Leadership Academy Fellow and awarded a scholarship by an NSF program that broadens participation of underrepresented STEM groups in leadership positions of higher education.
Erik Thunø (Art History) was invited as guest professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, under the auspices of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, 2021-22.
Max Tischfield (Cell Biology and Neuroscience) received a Tourette Association of America award.
Deniz Turker (Art History) received the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, January-July 2020.
Emma Wasserman was a Kingdon Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, Madison, WI.
Laura Weigert (Art History) was a member at the School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 2019-2020.
Eileen White (Molecular Biology and Biochemistry) was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Amber Wiley (Art History) received the Mellon Fellowship in Urban Landscape Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University for a research project titled “‘The Revolution Continues’: The Legacy of the Black Heritage Movement,” 2021.
Ping Xie (Cell Biology and Neuroscience) received a Tellos Pharmaceuticals grant.
Desheng Zhang (Computer Science) and coauthors received the Best Paper Award of the 12th ACM/IEEE international Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems: “DeResolver: A Decentralized Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Framework for City Services.”
Desheng Zhang (Computer Science) received the Outstanding Paper Award of the 42nd IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium: “Concurrent Order Dispatch for Instant Delivery with Time-Constrained Actor-Critic Reinforcement Learning.”
Yongfeng Zhang (Computer Science) received the NSF CAREER Award: Towards Conversational Recommendation Systems: Explainability, Fairness, and Human-in-the-Loop Learning).
Yongfeng Zhang (Computer Science) received the Facebook Faculty Research Award for “Towards a Sustainable Social Platform based on Explainable and Fairness-aware Recommendation.”
This awards list is compiled from the Faculty Achievement Reports submitted twice a year by departments. News to be added to this page can be sent to