Regents' Rising Researcher Award
A Nevada System of Higher Education award to recognize researchers for their early-career accomplishments and for their potential for advancement
Brian Hedlund, School of Life Sciences professor
Hedlund studies hyperthermophiles, organisms that dwell in hot springs. Some of the smallest organisms known, hyperthermophiles have an optimal growth temperature of more than 185 degrees. Hedlund is also expanding his research into biogeochemistry, the study of the intersection of biology, geology, and chemistry.
He has published more than 40 articles and in 2006 received the Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation. He is on the editorial boards of Applied and Environmental Microbiology and Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology. He serves as a reviewer of grant proposals for the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Hedlund holds a bachelor of science in biology from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in microbiology in 2000 from the University of Washington.
Regents' Creative Activity Award
Presented to one faculty member in the Nevada System of Higher Education each year
Claudia Keelan, English professor
is the author of six books of poetry, including The Secularist, Utopic, and The Devotion Field. Her most recent book, Missing Her, contains the poem "Everybody's Autobiography," which last year won the prestigious Jerome Shestack Award from American Poetry Review. She also has won the Beatrice Hawley Award, the Silver Pen Award, and the Robert D. Richardson Award for best essay. She is the recipient of the Kentucky Foundation for Women for work that advances women's causes.
From 2004 through mid-year 2008, Keelan served as director of UNLV's creative writing program, which was ranked among the top five in the nation by The Atlantic magazine and among the top nine by Poets & Writers, one of the most reliable trade publications in the creative writing field.
Keelan holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from California's Humboldt State University and a master of fine arts degree in poetry from the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop.
Barrick Distinguished Scholar
Given annually to selected faculty members with at least 10 years of experience
William Jankowiak, anthropology professor
Jankowiak is a field ethnographer who studies facets of the human experience that range from ritual, hierarchical family life to the sexual and the romantic. He conducted field research in New Orleans on African-American street parades and Mardi Gras festivals, and has conducted extensive research in China. He has spent more than 16 years researching Colorado City, Ariz., a polygamous community.
Jankowiak is the author of eight books, monographs, and edited collections, as well as nearly 100 articles, book chapters, and scholarly references. He writes on romantic love, the phenomenon it is, and the phenomenon social scientists would like it to be.
He holds a bachelor's degree in sociology from the State University of New York-Oneonata and a Ph.D. from University of California, Santa Barbara.
Dennis Lindle, chemistry professor
Lindle researches the interactions of light with matter, particularly in the X-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum. His work is at the forefront of enhancing fundamental knowledge of how x-rays interact with atoms and molecules, the building blocks of the physical world. Basic knowledge of these interactions provides a necessary foundation for a wide variety of applications of X-rays to more complex systems, such as in medical imaging and solar cells.
Lindle has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed publications. In 2002, based on his contributions in X-ray research, he was nominated by his peers and elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
He holds a Ph.D. in X-ray science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Barrick Scholar Award
Presented annually to two UNLV faculty members with less than 10 years' experience
Sajjad Ahmad, civil and environmental engineering professor
A hydrologist, Ahmad focuses on highly interdisciplinary areas. He develops mathematical simulation models to explore both water management and health policy issues. His research includes impacts of climate variability and change in the southwestern United States, forecasting extreme hydrologic events (floods, droughts), and public health (malaria control in Sub-Saharan Africa; tobacco control in United States).
He has published 26 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including IEEE Transactions, Water Resources Research and Advances in Water Resources. Ahmad received the 2009 National Science Foundation's Career Award, which recognizes the early career of teacher-scholars who effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.
Ahmad holds a Ph.D. from University of Western Ontario, Canada, in 2002.
Kent Crippen, science education and technology professor and associate director of UNLV's Center for Science and Mathematics Education
Crippen's research involves the design, development, and evaluation of science cyberlearning environments as well as in-service science teacher professional development. He is the principal investigator on a major state-funded professional development project for Nevada science and mathematics teachers. He also serves as a lead on a cyberinfrastructure project funded by the National Science Foundation related to regional impacts of climate change for Idaho, Nevada, and New Mexico. Crippen has been recognized by Apple Computer as an Apple Distinguished Educator and by the College of Education as a recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Research Award.
His leadership has produced multiple collaborative grant proposals, research projects, and graduate programs involving the colleges of Sciences and Education. He is an editorial review board member for numerous journals and serves as associate editor of the Journal of Science Education and Technology.
He holds a Ph.D. in administration, curriculum and instruction from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
