Nine faculty receive Mid-Career Awards

Nine professors have received prestigious Mid-Career Awards designed to provide a financial boost to faculty during what is often the most productive phase of their careers.

The awards are funded by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, and the Graduate School research committee selects winners. Faculty who are between five and 20 years past tenure and are nominated by their colleagues, are eligible for the $60,000 awards.

The 1999 winners are:

Lyn Abramson, professor of psychology. Abramson has made contributions to the understanding of vulnerability and invulnerability to depression. Her pioneering work on optimistic cognitive illusions illuminates how people are protected from depression and challenges the long-held assumption that cognitive distortion always is a hallmark of psychopathology.
Stephen R. Carpenter, professor of zoology. Carpenter studies the processes that control productivity of lakes. Carpenter has manipulated food chains of whole lakes in large-scale experiments that test the effects of top predators, like bass and walleye, on lake productivity.
David Loewenstein, professor of English. Loewenstein is a past winner of several prestigious national fellowships, including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. His first book, “Milton and the Drama of History” (Cambridge, 1990) won the James Holly Hanford Award for Distinguished Book.
Thomas F. J. Martin, professor of biochemistry. Martin studies the fundamental process regulating the secretion of neurotransmitters and hormones from cells of the nervous and endocrine systems. He is recognized for developing novel techniques for the biochemical analysis of the process and for the discovery of proteins and other factors that are essential for its operation.
Frances Myers, professor of art. Myers is a widely exhibited and influential artist in the arena of printmaking. She is noted for her use of non-conventional materials and formats, and for extending the notion of the print — using it as wall installation, and incorporating non-traditional and three-dimensional processes.
Craig A. Olson, professor of business. Olson has been on the faculty in the business school and in the UW Industrial Relations Research Institute since 1986. He is currently director of the Industrial Relations Research Institute. Olson has written numerous articles on labor relations and labor market issues.
Lloyd M. Smith, professor of chemistry. Smith is a leading figure in bioanalytical chemistry. He is credited with developing the first fluorescent- based automated DNA sequencing instrument, the most widely accepted tool in use today for sequencing the human genome.
Wesley H. Smith, professor of physics. Smith has led a UW group to international recognition in the continuing effort to understand the structure of matter and energy at a fundamental level. He has designed and constructed innovative massively parallel electronic apparatus to trigger the recording of interesting data.
Bernard Yack, professor of political science. Yack is an internationally recognized specialist in political theory who continues the kind of classical philosophical thinking that lies at the basis of modern political science. His work uses classical thought to address specific problems of governance today, influencing both political theorists and scholars of politics and government.