Five outstanding faculty members in the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Letters & Science have been named winners of this year’s Kellett Mid-Career Awards.
The Kellett award, supported by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, recognizes outstanding mid-career faculty members who are five to 20 years past the first promotion to a tenured position. Each winner, chosen by a Graduate School committee, receives a $60,000 flexible research award. Overall, eight UW-Madison faculty members received awards.
The award is named for William R. Kellett, a former president of the WARF board of trustees and retired president of Kimberly-Clark Corp.
This year’s L&S recipients are:
Amy Quan Barry, professor of English, is the author of three books published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, and her work has appeared in publications such as Ms. and The New Yorker. Among her awards are an NEA Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. She is currently at work on a novel.
Menzie Chinn, professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs, focuses his research on international finance and macroeconomics. He is currently a co-editor of the Journal of International Money and Finance, and coauthored a book, “Lost Decades,” published in 2011. Chinn is a member of the Congressional Budget Office Panel of Economic Advisers, and has served on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and as a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund.
Mark Eriksson, professor of physics, conducts experimental research on quantum devices in silicon and silicon-germanium, with potential applications in quantum information processing. He serves on the executive committee of the Wisconsin Center for Applied Microelectronics, and trains graduate students in the field of quantum devices while teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in physics.
Stephen Kantrowitz, professor of history, studies race and politics in the 19th-century United States, exploring questions of Native American citizenship in the Civil War era. His most recent book is “More Than Freedom: Fighting for Black Citizenship in a White Republic, 1829-1889,” published in 2012.
Dhavan Shah, Louis A. & Mary E. Maier-Bascom professor of journalism and mass communication, with appointments in the departments of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Political Science. He focuses his research on the effects of information and communication technologies on social judgments, civic engagement and health management. His recent work extends insights on message processing and networked communication to the use of information technologies for chronic disease care.