October 2020 Kudos

October 6, 2020

We mourn the passing of Akbar Montaser (Chemistry), a prolific researcher and innovator in analytical chemistry and beloved teacher and mentor at GW for more than 30 years.

The CCAS Physics Department was chosen by the American Physical Society's Committee on Education as a recipient of the 2021 Award for Improving Undergraduate Physics Education.

Katarina Aubuchon (Psychology) received a $1,500 grant from Psi Chi for the project “I Don't "Like" Your Politics: The Impacts of Political Exclusion on Group Attitudes and Voting.”

Stephanie Riegg Cellini (Public Policy & Public Administration) was awarded a $113,811 grant from Arnold Ventures to research using earnings for accountability in higher education.

Data science graduate students Zichu Chen, Abdulaziz Gebril, Amna Gul, Tanaya Kavathekar, Sanat Lal, Kristin Levine, Rashmi Menon and Aashish Nair; and Jingshu Song, MS ’20, (Data Science) contributed to BroadStreet’s COVID-19 Data Project Internship.

Omar Garcia-Ponce (Political Science) was awarded a $10,216 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to analyze the cyclic nature of retributive violence.

Keryn Gedan (Biological Sciences) received a $15,000 grant from Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education to study how adjacent habitats influence crop damage.

Ling Hao (Chemistry) received the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award.

Neil Johnson (Physics) was awarded two grants: $3,278,528 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense for a project to examine digitally connective actions for addressing global political systems; and $345,000 from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to study multiscale dynamics and extreme events in complex systems and networks.

David Karpf received the APSA Information Technology & Politics Best Public Facing Scholarship award.

Dean Kessman (Arts & Design) received an Individual Arts and Humanities Fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Dwight Jacob Kravitz (Psychological and Brain Sciences) was awarded a $723,275 grant from NSF to study the neural dynamics of memory maintenance.

Huynh-Nhu Le (Psychology) received a $114,636 grant from MedStar Georgetown Hospital and the Clark Foundation for integrating mental health care in centering pregnancy.

Senior Sean O’Neil (Political Science and Economics) was quoted by Spectrum News in the article “As Pandemic Grinds On, Younger People Plan to Help Election Day.”

Senior Claudia Orostizaga (Psychology) was featured by NJ.com in the article “10th annual YMCA Buck Leadership Award recognizes 4 local young adults.”

William Carleton Parke (Physics) authored the book Biophysics: A Student’s Guide to the Physics of the Life Sciences and Medicine (Springer, 2020).

Xiaofeng Ren (Mathematics) received a $42,000 grant from the Simons Foundation to study geometric variations and elliptic functions.

Marya Sergeyevna Rozanova-Smith (Geography) was awarded a $58,707 grant from NSF to research gender equality and empowerment in the Arctic.

First-year student David Ruff was quoted by Today.com in the article “Clothing brands team up with voting organizations before Election Day.”

Junior Lucas Vining-Recklitis (Biological Sciences) was featured by Washington Business Journal in the article “Meet DC Inno’s 25 Under 25 class of 2020.”

Nadia A. Volchansky (Arts & Design) was featured in the Nashman Faculty Update.

Silvio Waisbord (Media & Public Affairs) published "Mob Censorship: Online Harassment of US Journalists in Times of Digital Hate and Populism" in Digital Journalism. 

Ronald Weitzer (Sociology) was selected to serve on the Council on Policing Reforms and Race with the National Police Foundation.

Anthony Yezer (Economics) was appointed to serve on the Academic Research Council of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.