Four Receive Hilldale Faculty Awards

Four University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty members have been chosen to receive this year’s Hilldale Awards for major achievements in teaching, research and service.

Developed in 1987 for former Chancellor Irving Shain, the Hilldale Awards are given to a top professor in four divisions of the university: physical sciences, biological sciences, social sciences and humanities. Recipients are nominated by their peers and selected by the executive committee in their faculty division.

Winners are awarded a stipend of $7,500 from the Hilldale Fund, which receives income from the operation of the Hilldale Shopping Center. This year’s recipients are:

George Zografi | M. Crawford Young
Robert DeMars | Susan Stanford Friedman

George Zografi
Professor of Pharmacy

Zografi’s work has focused on surface physical chemistry and biophysical chemistry. His studies on the uptake of water by solids have proved to be of great value to formulation scientists in the pharmaceutical industry. Other research by Zografi has been tied to lung stability in premature infants and in adults suffering from respiratory distress.

He has been recognized for his research by several awards, including the Dale E. Wurster Research Award in Pharmaceutics (1990) from the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and the Ernest Volwiler Award for Research Achievement (1996) from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP). In 1989 he was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Zografi has received awards for his teaching from undergraduates at UW–Madison, where has taught since 1972, and at the University of Michigan. He was chosen for the AACP Distinguished Educator Award in 1989.

From 1975-80 Zografi served as dean of the School of Pharmacy. He chaired search committees for the dean of the pharmacy and veterinary medicine schools and is a past president of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Born in New York City, Zografi earned his bachelor’s degree at Columbia University and his master’s degree and doctorate at the University of Michigan.

M. Crawford Young
H. Edwin Young Professor of Political Science

Young is a scholar of African politics. Two of his books have won awards: the Herskovits Award from the African Studies Association and the Ralph Bunche Award from the American Political Science Association for The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (1976) and the Gregory Leubert Prize from the American Political Science Association Comparative Politics Section for The Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (1994).

In addition to his leadership in the study of political dimensions of cultural pluralism, Young is considered the preeminent scholar of politics in Zaire. His co-authored book Rise and Decline of the Zairian State (1985) remains the definitive treatment of Mobutu’s Zaire. In 1991 he received the African Studies Association’s Distinguished Africanist Award, the highest honor it bestows.

Young, who joined the UW–Madison faculty in 1963, has consistently received high marks in course evaluations by both undergraduate and graduate students. He has advised more than 10 percent of the students who have completed doctorates in the Department of Political Science since 1967.

Young served two terms as department chair, as well as chair of the African Studies Program, associate dean of the Graduate School and acting dean of the College of Letters and Science.

A native of Philadelphia, Young received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and his doctorate from Harvard.

Robert DeMars
Professor of Medical Genetics, Genetics and Human Oncology

DeMars’ work in the Laboratory of Genetics currently emphasizes two areas of study: the identification and characterization of genes needed to produce and present antigenic peptides to the immune system in humans, concerned with how immune responses get started, and the study of human immune responses to Chlamydia trachomatis, the most frequent bacterial cause of sexually transmitted disease in the United States and the agent behind millions of cases of preventable blindness in underdeveloped countries.

Much of his research has been collaborative and has helped accelerate several kinds of immunological research at UW–Madison and elsewhere. For example, DeMars has isolated a large variety of mutant cell lines that govern immune responses, which he has shared with other researchers. Much of his work has been used to combat actual medical problems, such as Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, which incurably afflicts male infants.

DeMars joined the UW–Madison faculty in 1959 and has for many years taught courses on somatic cell genetics and cancer genetics, as well as basic undergraduate courses in general genetics and a Medical School course in medical genetics. He has been active in National Institutes of Health study sections, campus committees on animal care and several departmental committees.

Born in New York City, DeMars earned his bachelor’s degree at the College of the City of New York and doctorate at the University of Illinois.

Susan Stanford Friedman
Virginia Woolf Professor of English and Women;s Studies and Senior Fellow, Institute for Research in the Humanities

Friedman is a scholar of 20th-century American and British literature. She has made influential contributions to our understanding of literary modernism, the study of women’s poetry and developments in narrative and feminist theory. She is considered by many the world’s leading authority on American poet and essayist H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). In addition to three previously published books, she has three more well underway, including a collection of her own essays in feminist theory and a scholarly edition of the letters of H.D. and Freud.

Friedman helped found the women’s studies program at UW–Madison and served as its associate chair from 1975-81. She is active in bringing together faculty from different disciplines on campus to work on questions of multicultural, sexual and gender identity together. Among her committee work was a stint on the Regents Task Force on Women, and recently she finished chairing the Humanities Divisional Committee. She has spoken on an array of women’s issues in the community, too.

Since joining the UW–Madison faculty in 1975, Friedman has won several teaching honors, including a Distinguished Teaching Award from UW–Madison and selection by the Wisconsin Student Association as one of the university’s 50 best teachers.

Raised in Massachusetts and Illinois, Friedman received her bachelor’s degree at Swarthmore College and doctorate at UW–Madison.