Awards for Research, Design, Podcasts & More

The College of Arts & Sciences is pleased to celebrate awards and honors that our faculty have received over the past few months for their research, leadership, and other accomplishments.

• Sloan Fellowships for Arts & Sciences Faculty
• Elwood Receives AAG Presidential Achievement Award
• Five Design Awards for Matthews
• Bessner Podcast Earns Signal Award
• Bawarshi Receives CCCC Exemplar Award
• More Awards & Honors
  

Three Arts & Sciences faculty — Maria “Masha” Baryakhtar, Matthew R. Golder, and Willem Laursen — were recently awarded early-career fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, selected by independent panels of senior scholars based on their research accomplishments, creativity, and potential to become a leader in their field.

Masha Baryakhtar, assistant professor of physics, focuses on theories beyond the established Standard Model of particle physics and on creating new ideas and directions for testing these theories, which address outstanding puzzles in our existing understanding and often predict new, ultralight, feebly interacting particles beyond those we have discovered so far. “My research program aims to search high and low for new, as yet hidden particles and forces,” Baryakhtar says. “Because of their nature, these particles require a range of creative search strategies. The directions I am establishing use new technologies and data from the sky to the lab and may be the only way to shed light on the truly dark elements of our universe.”

Matthew Golder, assistant professor of chemistry, addresses the omnipresent “plastics problems” by using molecular engineering to keep plastics in use longer before discarding, and also by developing new methods to make and repurpose plastics, with an emphasis on green chemistry and making plastics more recyclable. “We operate at the interface of fundamental organic chemistry and applied materials science to enhance plastic integrity and sustainability,” Golder says. “By doing so, my students really take this mission to heart and constantly dream up new ways to creatively (re)design commodity plastic materials.” 

Willem Laursen, assistant professor of biology, is focused on understanding how animals detect and respond to sensory cues in their environment. Using genetic manipulation, neurophysiology, and behavioral analyses, the Laursen lab’s current focus is to understand how disease vector mosquitoes use sensory cues to locate hosts, mates, and egg-laying sites. “This award will support our lab’s research on the role of the mosquito gustatory, or taste, system in critical behaviors, such as blood feeding,” Laursen says. “By examining the gustatory systems of blood-feeding insects, we hope to better understand how taste cues on the skin and in the blood are detected and used to guide their specialized behaviors — lines of inquiry that could ultimately identify new targets for controlling the spread of disease.”

Two other UW faculty — Vikram Iyer, assistant professor of computer science in the College of Engineering and Frankie Pavia, assistant professor of oceanography in the College of the Environment — also received Sloan Foundation early career fellowships. Each of the fellows will receive $75,000 to apply toward research endeavors. 

In recognition of her outstanding and sustained scholarly contributions to the field of geography, Sarah Elwood, professor and chair of the Department of Geography, was awarded the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Presidential Achievement Award at the AAG annual meeting in March.

Elwood’s research focuses on digital technologies, urban geographies, and creative politics forged by structurally disadvantaged peoples fighting for equity, self-determination, and everyday thriving. She has studied the use of geographic information systems (GIS) by neighborhood groups fighting gentrification and racial dispossession, interactive online mapping by children whose spatial knowledge and agency often go unseen, digital apps used in low-barrier employment by unsheltered people living and working in public spaces, and visual poverty politics advanced by unsheltered people and their allies.

Elwood co-founded and co-directed the Relational Poverty Network (2013-2023) to bring together scholars, students, activists, and policymakers from diverse theoretical and methodological traditions, disciplines, and countries into new conversations to advance a relational approach to poverty — theorizing poverty as produced and addressed by economic, political, and cultural relationships between social groups. Elwood also is past editor of Progress in Human Geography, co-author of Abolishing Poverty: Toward Pluriverse Politics and Futures (2023), and co-editor of Relational Poverty Politics (2018) and Qualitative GIS (2009).

In her undergraduate and graduate courses, Elwood — recipient of the UW Distinguished Teaching Award in 2012 — focuses on spatial technologies and urban geographies, with emphasis on impoverishment, and feminist, critical race, and queer theory. Her teaching is rooted in a commitment to experiential learning and collaboration as ways that students can carry out intellectually and socially significant scholarship.

Kristine Matthews, professor of visual communication design and principal of Studio Matthews, received five major design awards across multiple projects in 2025, many in collaboration with UW Design alumni. Her studio’s work operates in the public sphere, shaping spaces and experiences that thousands of people interact with daily across Seattle and beyond.

Most of these projects took years of work behind the scenes before becoming visible to the public. They “celebrate hard-won projects that, after years of dedicated work, are finally out in the world to be enjoyed and acknowledged,” Matthew says.

The awards include:

• a 2025 Communication Arts Typography Award for the Seattle Convention Center Hillclimb Numbers (with alumni team members Cassie Klingler, Scott Ichikawa, Christoffer Hart-Hansen, and Dan Neifert);
• a 2025 Communication Arts Design Award for placemaking and signage for University Prep’s ULab;
• a 2025 SEGD Global Design Award for the Gates Foundation ‘Designing Motherhood’ exhibition (with alumni team member Eli Kahn);
• a 2025 Core77 Design Award for permanent installations for four office buildings for a global tech client (with alumni team members Cal Dobrzynski, Eli Kahn, and Dan Neifert); and
• a 2025 Communication Arts Lettering + Printmaking Award for 2024 New Year’s cards (with alumni team member Peyton Todd).

Studio Matthews has been collaborating with UW design alumni since its beginnings. "We aim to hire the very best designers, thinkers, and creatives, and that often means working with UW Design alumni," Matthews says, adding that the benefit flows both ways — alumni bring emerging talent and fresh perspectives to the studio while gaining valuable professional experience and fair compensation for their work. She hopes that participation in these projects strengthens their portfolios, helps establish them as professional designers, and opens doors to future opportunities.

Daniel Bessner, the Anne H. H. and Kenneth B. Pyle Associate Professor in American Foreign Policy at the Jackson School of International Studies, received a Listener’s Choice award in the category of News and Politics and a silver medal at the 2025 Signal Awards, for his podcast “American Prestige.” 

Launched in 2021 with writer Derek Davison, “American Prestige” offers an in-depth analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international affairs, and has featured guests such as actor Morgan Spector and HuffPost senior diplomatic correspondent Akbar Shahid Ahmed.

“I believe our victory demonstrates how listeners really want to listen to independent media that takes a more questioning approach to the history and practice of U.S. foreign relations,” Bessner says. “Things are changing, and the media needs to change with it.”

The Signal Awards are bestowed annually to “recognize the podcasts that define culture.”

Anis Bawarshi, Thomas L. & Margo G. Wyckoff Endowed Professor in the Department of English, received the 2026 CCCC Exemplar Award from the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). The award recognizes Bawarshi as representing “the highest ideals of scholarship, teaching, and service to the entire profession.” CCCC is a constituent organization within the National Council of Teachers of English.

Announcing the award, the selection committee wrote of Bawarshi, "He is a brilliant scholar and thinker who has made hugely impactful contributions in and beyond the field; he is a gifted expert in pedagogy who has skillfully trained scores of students and teachers; he is a wise and generous mentor and collaborator; and he is an exceptional leader with steadfast integrity.” The committee added that Bawarshi is committed to uplifting marginalized voices and working toward a more just future.

Bawarshi’s publications include two monographs, two edited collections, two textbooks, 30 articles and book chapters, and two guest-edited special issues. In addition to field-defining contributions to Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS), he has advocated for historically marginalized communities remaining at the center of disciplinary conversations. His work has fundamentally reoriented his discipline from measuring students’ learning outcomes to honoring their diverse “incomes”—the linguistic, community, and embodied knowledges students bring into classroom spaces.

The committee noted that, as a mentor and teacher, “Bawarshi’s generosity of intellectual labor — his willingness to meet students where they are and scaffold their thinking forward — now shapes how many of his students report practicing mentorship with their own students. Former students share a common practice of asking: ‘How would Anis approach this situation?’ on an almost daily basis.”

Bawarshi’s administrative roles in the UW Department of English have included serving as director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric for more than a decade, director of the department's writing center (which later became the Odegaard Writing and Research Center) for nine years, and department chair for six years.

Honorary Awards
Publication Awards
New Professorship/Fellowship Appointments
Other Recognition

Honorary Awards

Michael Gelb, Boris and Barbara L. Weinstein Endowed Chair in Chemistry, received the 3rd Annual Catalyst Award, presented at WORLDSymposium 2026. Gelb has researched the development of new assays for expanded newborn screening, with a focus on lysosomal diseases. The award recognizes the wide-reaching positive impact his work has had on families living with lysosomal diseases in numerous countries around the world. 

Anne B. McCoy, Natt-Lingafelter Professor of Chemistry, received the 2026 Earle K. Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy & Dynamics from the American Physical Society “for impactful contributions to the anharmonic vibrational spectroscopy and dynamics of molecular radicals, ions, and clusters.” Molecular spectroscopy and dynamics are foundational work that enable predictive control of molecular behavior, driving advances across chemistry, physics, and materials science.

Thomas Rothvoss, Craig McKibben and Sarah Merner Professor in mathematics and computer science & engineering, has received the 2025 Trevisan Prize in the mid-career category, presented jointly by Bocconi University and the Italian Academy of Sciences to recognize exceptional research contributions in theoretical aspects of computer science construed broadly. Rothvoss was recognized for his breakthrough contributions to the study of optimization problems leading to novel approximation algorithms for bin-packing and Steiner tree problems, lower bounds on the extension complexity of the matching polytope, and major progress on the complexity of integer programming.

Martin Savage, professor of physics, received the 2026 Feshbach Prize for theoretical nuclear physics from the American Physical Society “for pioneering contributions to computational quantum chromodynamics for nuclear physics, especially through large-scale lattice quantum chromodynamics simulations, and for exploring applications of quantum computing.”

Tatiana Toro, Craig McKibben & Sarah Merner Professor in mathematics and director of the Simons Laufer Mathematical Institute, was awarded the 2025 Solomon Lefschetz Medal at the Mathematical Congress of the Americas. The medal, awarded every four years, recognizes excellence in research and contributions to the development of mathematics in a country or countries in the Americas. Toro's primary research interests lie in the interface of Partial Differential Equations, Harmonic Analysis, and Geometric Measure Theory.

Publication Awards

Jane Brown, emerita professor of German studies, and Marshall Brown, emeritus professor of English and comparative literature, received the Modern Language Association’s Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature for their translation of Harald Weinrich’s “Tempus: The World of Discussion and the World of Narration.” The selection committee noted that “the task of creating this particular translation involved navigating a number of stylistic ranges, tackling texts written in various dialect forms of several languages, and handling translingual differences in tense and mood — challenges that Brown and Brown met with skill, confidence, and grace.”

Miriam Chusid, assistant professor of art history in the School of Art + Art History + Design, was awarded a Millard Meiss publication grant from the College Art Association for her upcoming book, “The Ill-Fated Afterlife: Painting the Buddhist Cosmos in Premodern Japan.” The book examines the emergence of paintings of Buddhist hells in thirteenth-century Japan, demonstrating how ritual specialists employed these images to address a range of postmortem concerns and expectations within increasingly diverse Buddhist communities. The book will be published in fall 2026. 

Aria Fani, associate professor of Middle Eastern languages and cultures, received the Roth Translation Award for 2025 from the Modern Language Association (MLA), along with his co-author Adeeba Shahid Talukder, for their translation of “Shape of Extinction: Poems by Bijan Jalali,” which brings together 59 short poems by the modernist Iranian poet Bijan Jalali, the first book-length selection of his meditative yet quietly radical approach to poetry. The MLA award committee noted that “the translated poems in Shape of Extinction settle as dew, refracting the mighty, delicate tendrils between the past and the yet to come, in Jalali’s Persian, a rare gift."

Lillian McCabe, lecturer of Middle Eastern languages and cultures, received the Malcolm H. Keer Dissertation Award, Honorable Mention, from the Middle East Studies Association for her dissertation, "Fakhr al-Din  al-Rasi's (d. 606/1210) Book of the Hidden Secret and Its Reception.”

Geoffrey Turnovsky, professor of French and chair of the Department of French and Italian Studies, received the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize, Honorable Mention, from the Modern Language Association for his book, “Reading Typographically: Immersed in Print in Early Modern France.” The prize is awarded for an outstanding scholarly work in the field of French or francophone linguistic or literary studies.

New Professorship/Fellowship Appointments

Chad Hall, assistant professor of visual communication design in the School of Art + Art History + Design, was appointed to the UW Design Alumni Endowed Faculty Fellowship.

Jingwei Hu, professor of applied mathematics and adjunct professor of aeronautics & astronautics, was appointed to the Olga Jung Wan Endowed Professor of Applied Mathematics.

Habiba Ibrahim, professor and chair of the Department of English, was appointed to the Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood Professorship in the Humanities.

Mark Letteney, assistant professor of history, was appointed to the Carol Thomas Endowed Professorship in Ancient History.

Scott Magelssen, professor of theatre history and performance studies and executive director of the School of Drama, was appointed to the Floyd U. Jones Family Endowed Chair in Drama.

Alshakim Nelson, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry, was appointed to the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Chair.  

Rachel Lee Priday, associate professor of violin and chair of the strings program in the School of Music, was appointed to the Donald E. Petersen Endowed Faculty Fellowship for Excellence.

Vicente Rafael, professor of history, was appointed to the Colonel Donald W. Wiethuechter, USA. Ret. Endowed Faculty Fellowship in Military History.

Stephanie Richards, professor of instrumental performance in the School of Music, was appointed to the Floyd & Delores Jones Endowed Chair in the Arts.

Mark Rodgers, assistant teaching professor in music history in the School of Music, was appointed to the Adelaide D. Currie Cole Endowed Professorship.            

Adair Rounthwaite, professor and chair of art history in the School of Art + Art History + Design, was appointed to the Floyd & Delores Jones Endowed Professorship in the Arts.          

Jiaojian (Tristan) Shi, assistant professor of chemistry, was appointed to the Bernard & Claudine Nist Endowed Fellowship.

Xu Tan, professor of economics, was appointed to the Alberta C. Corkery Endowed Chair.   

James Tweedie, professor of cinema and media studies, was appointed to the Robert Jolin Osborne Professorship in Cinema and Media Studies.  

Sara Walsh, assistant professor of scenic design and head of design and production in the School of Drama, was appointed to the Donald E. Petersen Endowed Faculty Fellowship for Excellence.

Bonnie Whiting, associate professor of music and chair of percussion studies in the School of Music, was appointed to the Donald E. Petersen Endowed Professorship for Excellence.

Marek Wieczorek, associate professor of art history in the School of Art + Art History + Design, was appointed to the Joff Hanauer Distinguished Professorship in Western Civilization.

victor yañez-lazcano,  assistant professor of photo/media and new genres in the School of Art + Art History + Design, was appointed to the Donald E. Petersen Endowed Faculty Fellowship for Excellence.

Other Recognition

Briana Abrahms, associate professor of biology, was the invited keynote speaker at the International Parliamentary Roundtable on Human-Wildlife Coexistence, with members of parliament from Botswana, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Romania, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and Zambia in attendance.

Paul Rafanelli, bassoon instructor (and alumnus) in the School of Music and bassoonist for the Seattle Symphony, was awarded the inaugural endowed William & Sarah Ovens Bassoon chair at the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Rafanelli has been a member of the Seattle Symphony since 1992.