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Faculty and Student Highlights

David Banks (Professor of the Practice, Statistical Science) has been elected to a second three-year term on the American Statistical Association (ASA) Board of Directors. He is also the incoming Chair of the ASA Section on Statistical Learning and Data Mining.

Liang-Fu Chen (1st year Ph.D. student, Neurobiology) has received a Hung-Taiwan Fellowship.

Allison Curseen (Ph.D. candidate, English) is the recipient of a 2012 Samuel DuBois Cook Award. The award will be presented at the 15th annual Samuel DuBois Cook Society Dinner and Awards Ceremony, on Tuesday, February 21st at the Washington Duke Inn.

Nicholas Dewind (Ph.D. candidate, Neurobiology) has received a Ruth K. Broad Biomedical Research Foundation Award.

Joey Dunsmoor (Ph.D. candidate, Psychology) has received a Dissertation Award from the American Psychological Association.

Devendra P. Garg, Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering and Life Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), was honored with the 2011 Yasundo Takahashi Education Award at the ASME’s Dynamic Systems and Controls Conference held in Arlington, VA, from October 30 to November 2, 2011. The citation of this Biannual Education Award was “for his outstanding and pioneering contributions made in education and research as applied to the field of linear and nonlinear control of robotic systems; for his exemplary role as a mentor of younger faculty in the Division; and for his life-long career as a distinguished and inspiring educator”.

Brian Goldstone (Ph.D. candidate, Cultural Anthropology) published his essay, “Secularism, ‘Religious Violence,’ and the Liberal Imaginary,” in the volume Secularism and Religion-Making, edited by Arvind Mandair and Markus Dressler (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Stephen Jaffe (Mary and James H. Semans Professor of Music Composition), had his premiere, CAMEO, performed by the Da Capo Chamber Players at Merkin Hall, New York on October 10, 2011.

Fredric Jameson (William A. Lane Jr. Professor of Comparative Literature and Professor of Romance studies) has been selected to receive the sixth Award for Lifetime Scholarly Achievement from the Modern Language Association (MLA) and will be given the award during the association’s annual convention on January 7, 2012 in Seattle.

June Hee Kwon (Ph.D. candidate, Cultural Anthropology), was awarded the Eric Wolf Prize from the Society for the Anthropology of Work for her essay, “Rhythm of Circulation: Visa, Work, and Body of Korean Chinese in the Age of Transnational Commuting.”

Stephen Lisberger (Professor of Neurobiology) has been named chair of the Department of Neurobiology, effective January 1, 2012.

Richard Mooney (George B. Gellar Professor of Neurobiology) was given Duke’s 2011 Outstanding Postdoc Mentor Award.

Wendy Peh (Ph.D. candidate, Neurobiology) has received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Student Research Fellowship.

Michael Platt (Professor of Neurobiology) was selected as the new director of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences.

Jeremy Smith (Ph.D. Music ’08) has been hired as the Special Collections Librarian andCurator of the James and Susan Neumann Jazz Collection at Oberlin College.

Paul Swartzel (Ph.D. candidate, Music) taught an 80’s music course (“I Love the 80’s”) this semester that was featured on Duke Today and NPR’s “The State of Things.”

Denis Valle (Ph.D. candidate, Statistical Science) was first author on “Enhanced understanding of infectious diseases by fusing multiple datasets: a case study on malaria in the Western Brazilian Amazon region,” published in PLOS One.

Qiming Wang (2nd-year Ph.D. student, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science) won the Second Place award in the 2010 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Applied Mechanics Division Student Paper Competition.

Lin Zhang (2nd-year master’s student, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science) published a first-author paper, “Mechanical Constraints Enhance Electrical Energy Densities of Soft Dielectrics” in Applied Physics Letters, which was also reported by NSF News.

Xuanhe Zhao (Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science) was selected by the Executive Committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Applied Mechanics Division to receive the Haythornthwaite Research Initiation Grant. He also gave an invited talk at the UNC Chemistry Department and an invited plenary talk at the MRS conference in Boston.