Milestones

Honored

Abbie Loomis, Library Information and Literacy Instruction coordinator, received the 2005 Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians Information Literacy Award. Loomis was a charter member of the WAAL Information Literacy Committee in 1997.

Appointed

Esther Olsen, assistant director of the Physical Sciences Lab at the Synchrotron Radiation Center, was reappointed by Gov. Jim Doyle to be the education representative for the State Group Insurance Board.

Grants

Annette Muetze, electrical and computer engineering assistant professor, and Padma Gopalan, materials science and engineering assistant professor, received Faculty Early Career Development Awards from the National Science Foundation. The awards, at $399,000 and $445,000, respectively, are among the most prestigious given to faculty members who are just beginning their academic careers. They also are granted to creative projects that integrate research and education effectively.

Three UW research groups each have been awarded $125,000 grants over a three-year period by the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy. Menzie Chinn, professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs, and Charles Engel, economics professor, were selected for their theoretical and empirical investigation of account sustainability as it pertains to the major economies of the world and the United States.

Another collaborative project winning a grant is Jeremi Suri, assistant professor of history; Leigh Payne, political science professor; Clark Miller, assistant professor in La Follette School of Public Affairs and Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies; and Jonathan Patz, assistant professor in the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment and population health. Their research will focus on new insecurities that the process of globalization has created for states and societies, especially violence and ecological risk.

The other grant was awarded to Anne Miner, School of Business professor, and Brad Barham, professor of agricultural and applied economics, for their study of the relationship between institutional context and technology entrepreneurship.