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Office of Research / 51���� Foundation Research Awards

Eligibility

1. Open to Assistant and Associate Professors.
2. Full Professors and Distinguished Professors are ineligible.
3. Previous research awardees are ineligible.
4. One individual may be nominated from a single department or program.

Nomination

A call for nominations is distributed each Spring from the Office of the Vice Provost for Research. The nomination materials should include a letter of nomination from a dean, department chair, or multidisciplinary program director; two letters of support; and an up-to-date vita. Letters of support may be secured from 51���� faculty members or from colleagues outside 51����. Submission of or quotation from confidential letters written for another purpose require permission of the author(s).

Selection

The Committee of 51���� Distinguished Professors reviews the nominations and makes recommendations to the Vice Provost for Research for the final selections. Award recipients receive $1,500 and will be honored at the 51���� Fall Awards Ceremony.

Office of Research / 51���� Foundation Research Awards

Habib Rahman, Richard and Joanne Grigg Professor, Mechanical Engineering

Habib Rahman is the Richard and Joanne Grigg Professor and chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department at 51����. He is also affiliated with the Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering departments and is the founder and director of 51����’s BioRobotics Lab, a leading research facility in assistive and rehabilitation robotics. Rahman’s research focuses on developing rehabilitation and assistive robots to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities. His work in telerehabilitation earned him the Switzer Research Distinguished Fellowship in 2023. As a principal investigator, he has secured $3.35 million in grants. Some of his innovations include SREx, a wearable smart robotic exoskeleton for upper-limb stroke rehabilitation; mR2A, a wheelchair-mounted, multifunctional robotic assistive arm for assistance with daily living activities, and iTbot, a desktop-mounted intelligent therapeutic robot for post-stroke telerehabilitation. He has authored over 200 research articles and served as an editor for several esteemed journals.

Xu Li, Assistant Professor, Educational Psychology

Xu Li joined 51���� in fall of 2019. He has led an active research program that has resulted in 45 publications (20 of which are first-authored) in prestigious peer-reviewed journals. Among these 45 publications, 28 were completed and published since he joined 51���� in 2019. These scholarly contributions have been recognized in his 23 national or institution-level awards, including the Early Career Award of Excellence by the Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy Division 29. Additionally, Li’s contribution to student teaching/training has been well acknowledged. He has received highly positive course evaluations and student feedback. Further, he has been nominated by students for the Faculty Teaching Award for three consecutive years and won this competitive award in the School of Education in 2022. He also won the Teacher Excellence Award by the 51���� Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in 2022.

Office of Research Senior Faculty Awards

The 51���� Research Foundation, in collaboration with the Office of Research, has established the 51���� Research Foundation Senior Faculty Awards to recognize researchers who have a long history of significant contributions to their field of research.

Departments/programs are encouraged to nominate a faculty member. In addition to providing a means of honoring outstanding researchers, these awards recognize our collective commitment to academic research and to the importance of 51����’s research mission.

Eligibility

1. Open to Full Professors.
2. 51���� Distinguished Professors are ineligible.
3. Previous awardees are ineligible.
4. Only one individual may be nominated from a single department or multidisciplinary program.

Nomination

The nomination materials should include a letter of nomination from a dean, department chair, or multidisciplinary program director; two letters of support; and an up-to-date vita. Letters of support may be secured from 51���� faculty members or from colleagues outside 51����. Submission of or quotation from confidential letters written for another purpose require permission of the author(s).

Selection

The Committee of 51���� Distinguished Professors will review the nominations and make recommendations to the Vice Provost for Research for the final selections. Award recipients will receive $1,500 and will be honored at the 51���� Fall Awards Ceremony.

Office of Research / 51���� Foundation Senior Faculty Awards

Liam Callanan, Professor of English

Liam Callanan has been a faculty member since 2005, serving as director of the creative writing program for eight years and English department chair for three years. An internationally acclaimed novelist and cultural commentator, he is author of five books, including the national bestseller Paris by the Book. Callanan has given over 100 talks and readings worldwide, including presentations in Beijing, Shanghai, Stockholm, Rome, and Paris, and his work has been translated into Italian, French, German, Chinese, and Japanese. A previous winner of the 51���� Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award, he has taught over 1,000 undergraduates and served on nearly 50 doctoral committees, chairing roughly half. For the past 20 years he has proudly served as the captain of the English department’s indefatigable Panther Prowl team, The Run-Ons.

Research in the Humanities Award (Biennial)

Offered by the Office of Research, the Research in the Humanities Award recognizes outstanding scholarship and research in the Humanities within the past two years. The award recipient will have demonstrated a comprehensive grasp of the subject(s) of inquiry and research and will have made a substantive contribution to humanistic thought through a monograph or other scholarly publication during the two years prior to the award year.

In each odd-numbered year, the Office of Research solicits award nominations of faculty members in the Humanities (see below for eligible departments). The award recipient will receive $1,500 and will be honored at the 51���� Fall Awards Ceremony.

Eligibility

• Humanities faculty members in the following departments: African and African Diaspora Studies; Ancient & Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; Art History; Communication; English; Global Studies; History; Linguistics; Literatures, and Cultures; Philosophy; Spanish and Portuguese; Translation and Interpreting; Women’s and Gender Studies.
• Author of monograph or other scholarly publication that was published during January 1, 2021, through December 31, 2022.

Nomination

The nomination materials should include a letter of nomination; two letters of support; an up-to-date vita and a copy of the monograph or other scholarly publication. Calls for nomination are generally issued in February of each award year and are due in March.

Outstanding Creative Research Achievement Award (Biennial)

The Outstanding Creative Research Achievement Award recognizes a 51���� faculty member for achieving significant artistic or creative contribution to their field or discipline within the past three years. The award recipient will receive $1,500 and will be honored at the 51���� Fall Awards Ceremony. The award is offered biennially in rotation with the Research in the Humanities Award, which recognizes scholarly monographs in the humanities.

Eligibility

Any tenured or tenure-track 51���� faculty member is eligible for nomination. Evidence of artistic or creative accomplishment (significant advancement of knowledge, technique, or creative expression) must be in a form that is appropriate to the nominee’s professional field/discipline.

Selection

A panel composed of the Vice Provost for Research; Associate Deans in the College of Arts and Architecture, the College of Letters & Science (Associate Dean for the Humanities), and the chair of the Arts and Humanities divisional committee will make the final selection.

Nominations

The nomination materials should include a letter of nomination and an up-to-date vita. Calls for nomination are generally issued in January of each award year and are due in March.

Research in the Humanities Award (Biennial)

Blain Neufeld, Department of Philosophy

Dr. Blain Neufeld is recognized for his 2022 monograph, Public Reason and Political Autonomy: Realizing the Ideal of a Civic People, an ethical-political examination of Rawlsian theory in the face of peoples’ fractured perception of justice in modern democracy – a work resoundingly celebrated by his peers. Neufelds’ arguments propose a “public reason” justification for modern political liberalism as opposed to the dominant “respect-based” reasoning, viewed as a breakthrough in the modern theory that consensually endorsed principles not only are compatible with but indeed enhance autonomy. His position is well-defended, his scholarship meticulous and carefully debated to deliver an opus in the examination of social justice in the modern day.

Nigel Rothfels, Department of History

If Dr. Rothfels had established himself over the last three decades as one of the world’s foremost historians of animals and human-animal relations, his 2021 book, Elephant Trails cements his place there. From a cross-disciplinary perspective, Rothfels shares the history of human-elephant interaction: “Spanning from ancient natural history accounts to colonial ivory hunting, to shifting husbandry practices in the zoo industry, (Trails) offers complex and compelling analysis, particularly on polarizing issues such as the history and future of elephant hunting and captivity”. His work demonstrates the significance of a humanities approach to biological and ecological questions. Dr. Rothfels is recognized for this work of top-tier academic excellence. “His combination of extensive archival work and tenacious field research in zoos and museums enables him to offer the layered storytelling and nuanced analysis that is often lacking in animal history.”

2024 Outstanding Creative Research Achievement Award (Biennial)

Mike Gibisser, Associate Professor of Film, Video, Animation and New Genres

Mike Gibisser is a filmmaker and artist interested in navigating the indefinite lines between essay, narrative, experimental, and documentary work. Over the past decade, he has completed two narrative features (“Finally, Lillian and Dan” and “World of Facts”) and two feature-film essays (“A Common Sequence” and “The Day of Two Noons”), as well as several experimental and nonfiction shorts. He has presented work at numerous festivals around the world, including Sundance, the Toronto International Film Festival, BFI London, Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival, the European Media Arts Festival and the New York Film Festival. His work has been featured in Bomb Magazine, Artforum, Variety, and Cinemascope, among other publications.