Faculty Honors

The following are a few of the recent recognitions and awards received by our faculty.

Joan DeJean, Trustee Professor of French, was made a fellow of the prestigious British Academy for the humanities and social sciences. DeJean’s expertise is in 17th- and 18th-century French literature, with an emphasis on women’s writing, the history of sexuality, the development of the novel, and material culture. Each year, the British Academy elects to its fellowship up to 20 international scholars who have achieved distinction. Past fellows include Winston Churchill and C.S. Lewis.

Charles Kane, Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Physics, was one of three professors to share this year’s Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award. Kane was honored for his groundbreaking work on topological insulators, which has initiated a new field in condensed matter physics. The Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award recognizes scientists who make fundamental achievements in the fields of mathematics, physics, and biomedicine.

Christopher Murray, Richard Perry University Professor in Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering, has been selected as a Citation Laureate for 2020 by Clarivate. This distinction goes to researchers whose work has been deemed “Nobel class” by being among the most influential in their fields. Murray and colleagues at MIT and Seoul National University are being recognized for their research on the “synthesis of nanocrystals with precise attributes for a wide range of applications in physical, biological, and medical systems.”

The Queen’s College at University of Oxford recognized Barbara Savage, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of Africana Studies, with an undergraduate prize named in her honor. The Barbara Savage Prize will be awarded annually to the student with the best thesis in Black history. Savage was Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History at Queen’s in 2018–2019. She teaches 20th-century African American history, the history of American religious and social reform movements, the history of the relationship between media and politics, and Black women’s political and intellectual history.

Deborah Thomas, R. Jean Brownlee Term Professor, received the 2020 Gender Equity Award from the American Anthropological Association, the world’s largest scholarly and professional organization of anthropologists. In addition to honoring scholars who work against discrimination against women in anthropology, this award celebrates feminist scholars working to raise awareness of discrimination in anthropology on the grounds of gender presentation of any kind. Thomas’ research interests include transnationalism and diaspora, race and gender, performance and popular culture, and culture and political economy.