More than $159,000 in cash was awarded to University of Iowa entrpreneurs who participated in the Iowa Innovation Challenge in April, sponsored by the Iowa John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (Iowa JPEC), UI Office of Vice President for Research, UI research Foundation, and UI Ventures.

Claudia Gabriela Rivera, assistant director for diversity, inclusion, and student success in the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business Undergraduate Program Office (UPO), is the recipient of the 2020 Lola Lopes Award for Undergraduate Student Advocacy.

University of Iowa faculty members Simon Balto, assistant professor of History and African American Studies, and Richard Brent Turner, professor of Religious Studies and African American Studies, have been named 2020 fellows of the American Council of Learned Societies.

This year, our students graduate under extraordinary circumstances that demand we step up to meet unprecedented challenges.

More than 5,400 Iowa students will be awarded degrees after the spring 2020 semester, and many graduates will participate in live-streamed virtual commencement ceremonies, which begin Thursday, May 14, with the College of Pharmacy and end on Friday, June 5, with the College of Dentistry.

Professor of Physics and Astronomy Cornelia Lang will serve as the associate dean for undergraduate education, and Professor of Biology Joshua Weiner will become associate dean for research. Both appointments are effective July 1, 2020.

The UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences named two faculty members to the honor of distinguished associate professor of Instruction for 2020-2022: Pilar Marcé of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Rosemary Moore of the departments of Classics and History.

The University of Iowa Council on Teaching named 30 teaching assistants as recipients of the 2020 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.

Val Sheffield, the Roy J. Carver Chair in Molecular Genetics at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, has been elected to the 2020 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In recognition of his hard work and contributions to Cambus, Bryan Mulrooney was named Iowa’s student employee of the year for 2019–20.