The end of the year brings many reasons to celebrate: Researchers from SIS and CICS received $399K Sloan Grant; New dean of UT Extension appointed by UTIA; CEE professor named AAS Fellow; Retired UT Extension specialist honored by the Tennessee chapter of Gamma Sigma Delta; Nuclear engineering professor named ISEAM Fellow; TN Commissioner of Agriculture honored with 2020 Alumni Award by the Tennessee Chapter of Gamma Sigma Delta; UT Extension specialist named Field to Market’s 2020 Trusted Adviser of the Year. Continue reading
School of Information Sciences
SIS, CICS Team Awarded $399K Sloan Grant to Study Early Career Researchers
As COVID-19 continues to affect the way people live, work, and learn around the world, researchers are beginning to gather data on how the pandemic is affecting society, and one such research team is from the College of Communication and Information’s Center for Information and Communication Studies and the School of Information Sciences in collaboration with CIBER Research Ltd. in the United Kingdom. The study will delve into the lives of early career researchers around the world to better understand how the pandemic is affecting their work and role in the academic community. Read more at sis.utk.edu.
Faculty Win Grant to Study Russian Disinformation Campaigns
An interdisciplinary research team from communications, anthropology, and political science will study Russian disinformation campaigns in three former Soviet republics as part of a $1.6 million Minerva research grant awarded through the United States Department of Defense.
UT researchers were one of only 12 academic groups nationwide selected for the prestigious Minerva Research Initiative awards this year.
The research team for the project consists of faculty members from five departments: Maureen Taylor (advertising and public relations), Catherine Luther (journalism and electronic media), Suzie Allard (information sciences), Michael Fitzgerald and Brandon Prins (political science), and Alex Bentley (anthropology). Also closely involved in the project are Natalie Rice, research associate for the College of Communication and Information’s Center for Information and Communication Studies, and Oleg Manaev, global security fellow at the UT Institute of Nuclear Security.
“The study will monitor and analyze the content of Russian information warfare and measure the effectiveness the tactics have in shaping opinion in Eastern European nations Georgia, Ukraine, and Belarus,” said Taylor, director of the School of Advertising and Public relations and principal investigator for the study.
Learn more at news.utk.edu.
Recognitions, October 17
Record Number of Haslam Students Studying Abroad
An increasingly globalized market requires professionals with international knowledge and experience. The Haslam College of Business aims to provide the opportunities and support needed to gain such experience. Sara Easler, Director of the Office of International Programs and Study Abroad, leads the effort to increase student participation in faculty-directed, summer and semester-length programs The numbers demonstrate her team’s success.
“This past year we’ve seen 33 percent growth in our faculty-directed programming, while overall participation across all programs grew 20 percent to an all-time high of 367 students with an international study experience in a single academic year,” Easler says.
Recognitions, April 4
Gross Receives 2018 SEC Faculty Achievement Award
A UT faculty member who uses computational and mathematical tools to address environmental problems has received a top award from the Southeastern Conference.
Louis Gross was honored with the 2018 SEC Faculty Achievement Award, the SEC announced today. He is an Alvin and Sally Beaman Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Mathematics. He also is director of the UT Institute for Environmental Modeling and of the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS), based at UT.
The award recognizes professors from the 14 SEC schools who have outstanding records in teaching and scholarship. Honorees from each university receive a $5,000 honorarium and become their university’s nominee for SEC Professor of the Year, to be awarded this spring. The Professor of the Year recipient will receive an additional $15,000 honorarium and be recognized at an SEC awards dinner in Destin, Florida.
McClung Museum Wins Award from Museum Association
The McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture received a Tennessee Association of Museums (TAM) Award of Excellence for the museum’s special exhibition Fish Forks and Fine Furnishings: Consumer Culture in the Gilded Age, which ran from May 26 to August 27, 2017.
The exhibition examined how Gilded Age (1870–1900) consumer goods––from fish forks to fashionable dress, furniture, and china––were visible and powerful symbols of wealth, power, and social class. It was curated by the museum’s Assistant Director and Curator Catherine Shteynberg and featured more than 100 objects from the museum’s permanent collections as well as items from other museums and private lenders. Fish Forks and Fine Furnishings is one of the museum’s most visited special exhibits in recent history; it incorporated a variety of public programming, including lectures, free family fun days and stroller tours, summer camps, and a cocktail party fundraiser.