Faculty & staff recognition

Nine Fulbrights, one Atlantic Fellowship, one Guggenheim, and three American Academy for the Advancement of Science Fellowships have been awarded to faculty in the last five years. Other distinctions include fellowships from the American Psychology Association and the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, the Los Angeles Times "Best Books of 2002" award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Faculty and other UMass Boston staff are awarded grants, are often called upon to share their expertise and knowledge, and are instrumental in providing research and critical information to benefit the community. Here are a few examples:

• Lorna Rivera, professor of sociology and community planning in the College of Public and Community Service has received a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Academy of Education (NEA) and Spencer Foundation to study adult literacy. She will use the fellowship to write a book analyzing ethnographic data she gathered while interviewing formerly homeless women of color throughout Greater Boston and New England from 1995 to 2000. Rivera is also one of 23 scholars internationally to receive the prestigious NEA award that funds innovative research in education.

• Pulitzer Prize-winning English Professor Lloyd Schwartz, is a classical music critic for NPR's Fresh Air and the Boston Phoenix.

• Alan Clayton-Matthews of the Public Policy Program has emerged as one of the most sought-after number-crunchers in the state and informs policy-makers and the people who run businesses about what they can and can not expect from the state's economy. The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald have both called on him more than a dozen times this winter.

• The Massachusetts Department of Public Health contracted with Lois Biener and the Center for Survey Research to study the results of the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program.

• Susan Gore of UMass Boston's Sociology Department and Center for Survey Research serves on the grant-reviewing committee for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Scientific Review's Social Psychology, Personality and Interpersonal Processes Study Section.

• Padrig O'Malley is a senior fellow at UMass Boston's John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs and editor of the institute's New England Journal of Public Policy. He sponsored a 1997 meeting between 27 members of nine Northern Ireland political parties and members of South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) and its National Party government to impart information about the negotiation process that had transformed South Africa from a repressive apartheid state into a democracy.

• Françoise Carré, research director for the Center for Social Policy at UMass Boston was a leading researcher on a study of an innovative model that helps workers overcome barriers such as physical disabilities, homelessness, or recent incarceration.

• The Division of Corporate, Continuing and Distance Education has recently been awarded a $3 million grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish a regional center for advanced technology education in Boston to help meet the projected demand for skilled information technology workers in the Commonwealth.

• Michael B. Chesson, Professor of History, has recently won the prestigious Founder's Award for his book Exile in Richmond: The Confederate Journal of Henri Garidel. The award is granted every two years by the Museum of the Confederacy in recognition of the best-edited work on the Civil War period.