SSD alumni news
Alumni: Submit your updates to Nina B. Herbst in SSD at nherbst@uchicago.edu or 773.834.9067.
In September Brian Cody Jr., AM'08 (Sociology); Cory Schires, AM'07; and Rob Walsh, AM'07, moved their three-year-old company, Scholastica, into Catapult, an office space for tech start-ups in Chicago's River North neighborhood. Scholastica, which previously operated out of apartments and coffee shops, produces an online publishing platform for academic journals. The three cofounders met while living in UChicago's International House. In April Dominic Boyer, U-High'88, AM'94, PhD'00 (Anthropology), became founding director of Rice University's new Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences. Boyer, a Rice anthropology professor, described the center's twofold purpose on the university's website: "to help investigate the causes and consequences of the impact of human life on this planet and to discover ways of making the footprint of human society less heavy." Sheila Amin Gutiérrez de Piñeres, AM'89 (Economics), was named vice president for academic affairs at Austin College in Sherman, Texas. Piñeres previously served as the dean of undergraduate education and associate provost at the University of Texas at Dallas, where she was also professor of economics and political economy and held the Mary McDermott Cook Distinguished Chair for Undergraduate Education and Research. In 2010 she was one of 12 individuals inducted into the University of Texas System Academy of Distinguished Teachers. In September Sara Hirschhorn, AM'05 (Middle Eastern Studies), PhD'12 (History), was named a university research lecturer and the Sidney Brichto Fellow in Israel Studies at the University of Oxford. During the five-year fellowship, Hirschhorn will continue her research, teaching, and public engagement surrounding Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict. She previously held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. Jaekyung Lee, PhD'97 (Education), was appointed dean of the University of Buffalo Graduate School of Education. A professor of counseling, school, and educational psychology, Lee has served as the University of Buffalo's associate dean for academic affairs and as an assistant professor at the University of Maine. His research, which has been supported by the US Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, focuses on educational equity, high-stakes testing, and international and comparative education. In June Jean-Marie Dufour, AM'78, PhD'79 (Economics), was appointed to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, which promotes and supports postsecondary-based research and training in the humanities and social sciences. Dufour is the William Dow Chair in Political Economy and a professor of economics at McGill University and professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal. He has received fellowships from the American Statistical Association, the Econometric Society, the Royal Society of Canada, and the Journal of Econometrics. Joshua S. Parens, AM'88, PhD'92 (Political Science), became dean of the University of Dallas's Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts in June. Parens, a scholar of medieval Jewish and Islamic philosophy, has taught at the university for 16 years and previously directed its philosophy graduate program. The University of Chicago Press published his book Maimonides and Spinoza: Their Conflicting Views of Human Nature in 2012. Jeffrey B. Webb, PhD'01 (History), was named the Edwina Patton Chair in the Arts and Sciences of Huntington University in Huntington, Indiana. A professor of history, Webb has taught at Huntington since 1999, with teaching interests including Western civilization, US history, Christianity, religious history, and the US Civil War. Webb has also authored two books in the Complete Idiot's Guide series (Alpha Books): Christianity (2004) and Exploring God (2005). Glenn W. "Max" McGee, AM'78, PhD'85 (Education), was selected as head of school at the Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science, a new boarding school in Princeton, New Jersey, that opened in September. McGee has held several positions in education throughout his career, including serving as a teacher; a principal; Illinois's superintendent of education; and, for the past six years, president of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. He is also a past chair and current member of the Golden Apple Foundation, a nonprofit committed to furthering teaching excellence with a focus on disadvantaged schools. This fall, Hephzibah V. Strmic-Pawl, AM'05, joined Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina, as assistant professor of sociology. She was previously a visiting assistant professor of sociology and faculty affiliate in African American studies at the College of Charleston. Her research and teaching interests include multiracial identity, racism, and gender. In addition to her academic work, Strmic-Pawl is the president and founder of Continuing College, a nonprofit that helps community-college students transition to four-year colleges and universities.  

Alumni awards

Mohammad Nizamuddin, AM'69, was awarded the Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence), Pakistan's third-highest civilian honor, by Pakistan's federal government in August for his services in the social sciences. Nizamuddin has been vice chancellor of the University of Gujrat since 2006, where he has been recognized for his efforts to use information technology to encourage research and improve teaching skills, develop student connections with the government, and train future managers, leaders, and policy makers. He teaches graduate-level courses and serves as a member of the university's doctoral program coordinating committee. Nizamuddin also chairs the National Committee on the Development of Social Sciences and is founder and chair of Pakistan's first interuniversity consortium to promote the social sciences. Kristina Simacek, AM'07, won the Regenstrief Institute's People's Choice for Healthcare Delivery contest in April. The institute, a health-care research organization in Indianapolis, presents an award for the most innovative and feasible proposal for improving health-care delivery in the United States. Simacek, an Indiana University Bloomington sociology doctoral candidate, won for her idea, a computer application that translates a summary of a doctor's visit into customized, printable action items that a patient can take home or have e-mailed to designated recipients. In addition to a monetary award, Simacek can also work with the institute to design, develop, and test her idea. Kealoha "Kay" Widdows, AM'82, received the McLain-McTurnan-Arnold Excellence in Teaching Award from Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Widdows, professor and the John H. Schroeder Interdisciplinary Chair in Economics, has served at the college for 26 years. Since arriving at Wabash in 1987, she has taught more than three dozen distinct courses and has served as chair of the economics department, chair of the Division of Social Sciences, and as acting dean of the school. David Meltzer, U-High'82, AM'87, PhD'92 (Economics), MD'93, was named a master in hospital medicine by the Society of Hospital Medicine in May. A master is the highest designation in the hospital medicine specialty, reserved for hospitalists who have distinguished themselves through significant contributions to hospital medicine and health care. Meltzer is an associate professor in the Department of Medicine, an associated faculty member at Chicago Harris and the Department of Economics, director of the Center for Health and the Social Sciences at the University, and codirector of the Program on Outcomes Research Training and the MD/PhD program in the social sciences. José Angel Hernández, PhD'08 (History), won two awards for his book Mexican American Colonization During the Nineteenth Century: A History of the US–Mexico Borderlands (Cambridge University Press, 2012). He received the inaugural William M. LeoGrande Prize for the best book on US-Latin American relations from the School of Public Affairs and the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University. He also won the Américo Paredes Book Award by the Center for Mexican American Studies at South Texas College. Hernández is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is a 2013–14 fellow with the university's Interdisciplinary Studies Institute. Richard Roddewig, JD'74, AM'77 (Political Science), received the William S. Ballard Award from the Counselors of Real Estate (CRE) in June. Along with two of his partners from Clarion Associates, a national land-use and real-estate consulting firm, Roddewig was recognized for the case study "Determining Real Estate Damages from Natural Disasters: Real Estate Counseling in Class Action Litigation—Lessons from Hurricane Katrina," published in the CRE journal Real Estate Issues. The annual award is given to the author whose work best exemplifies the high standards of content maintained in the 36-year-old professional journal. Roddewig is president of Clarion Associates, where he specializes in expert testimony in large real-estate-related litigation assignments. Nancy Segal, AM'74, PhD'82 (Behavioral Sciences), received the 2013 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association (APA) in May for her fourth book, Born Together—Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study (Harvard University Press, 2012.) She will deliver an address and be honored at the 2014 APA convention in Washington, DC. Segal is professor of developmental psychology and director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University, Fullerton. Şener Aktürk, AB'03, AM'03 (International Relations), received the 2013 Joseph Rothschild Prize in Nationalism and Ethnic Studies for his book Regimes of Ethnicity and Nationhood in Germany, Russia, and Turkey (Cambridge University Press, 2012). The prize, sponsored by the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Nationalities for an outstanding book published in the previous calendar year on Russia, Eastern Europe, or Eurasia in which substantial attention is paid to questions of ethnicity and/or nationalism. Aktürk is an assistant professor in the Department of International Relations at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey.  

Alumni book

In October Richard Kurin, AM'74, PhD'81 (Anthropology), a member of the Social Sciences Visiting Committee and undersecretary for art, history, and culture at the Smithsonian Institution, published The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects (Penguin Press). In the book, which includes color photographs of objects dating from the pre-Columbian continent to the present, Kurin and Smithsonian curators and scholars provide commentary and historical background. Items range from Harriet Tubman's hymnal to Julia Child's kitchen, and the authors tell how they came to be housed at the Smithsonian.