Linda Maxson, dean of the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has named three faculty members to the honor of Dean’s Scholars and two faculty members as Collegiate Scholars. Both awards honor faculty who have demonstrated excellence in teaching and scholarship or creative work. The Dean’s Scholar award, established in 1999, recognizes faculty as they are tenured and promoted to associate professor. The Collegiate Scholar award recognizes mid-career faculty at the time they advance from associate to full professor. The awards are made on the advice of the Collegiate Committee on Faculty Promotion and Tenure.
The 2012-14 Dean’s Scholars are Tracy Osborn, Lynette Renner, and Maggy Tomova. The new Collegiate Scholars are Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Cesare Tinelli.
Dean's Scholars and Collegiate Scholars are two-year awards that carry discretionary funds to support teaching and research initiatives. The Collegiate Scholar award is funded by a generous unrestricted gift to the college. Dean’s Scholar awards are made possible through the UI Alumni Association’s endowment of the Dean’s Chair in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
“It gives me great pleasure to recognize these outstanding faculty members,” Maxson says. “Each has been prolific in presenting wide-ranging research to the academic community. They represent the scholarly achievement that continually renews our curriculum and offers exciting academic opportunities for our students. I am also grateful to the Alumni Association for its generous endowment, which provides needed resources for faculty development and other worthy projects.”
Tracy Osborn, associate professor of political science, teaches a wide range of courses in American politics at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her book, How Women Represent Women: Political Parties, Gender, and Representation in the State Legislatures, was published by Oxford University Press. She is president-elect of the Women’s Caucus of the American Political Science Association. She earned her doctorate from Indiana University, and joined the UI faculty in 2007.
Lynette Renner, associate professor of social work, teaches social work theory and practice courses. Her federally-funded research focuses on the effects of family violence for children and adults, along with risk and protective factors. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma. She earned her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and joined the UI faculty in 2009.
Maggy Tomova, associate professor of mathematics, teaches courses ranging from mathematics for biology majors to graduate topology courses. Her research focuses on problems in knot theory, with applications to DNA folding. An NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award supports her research and her summer math institute for at-risk high school students. She earned her doctorate from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and joined the UI faculty in 2008.
Meenakshi Gigi Durham, professor of journalism and mass communication, who holds a joint appointment in gender, women’s, and sexuality studies, teaches gender and media, critical theories of the media, and various writing classes. She has published extensively on gender, sexuality, and the body in media representation. She is the author of The Lolita Effect (2008) and serves on the editorial boards of several leading scholarly journals. She received her doctorate from the University of Florida and joined the UI faculty in 2001.
Cesare Tinelli, professor of computer science, teaches software development and verification, and logic in computing. He is associate editor of the Journal of Automated Reasoning and a leading researcher in Satisfiability Modulo Theories, a subfield of automated reasoning. His work has been funded by the NSF, the Air Force, and Intel Corporation. He received his doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined the UI faculty in 1999.