Three faculty Weiss Presidential Fellows and two Appel Fellows honored
Cornell President Hunter Rawlings has named the university's 2001 Stephen
H. Weiss Presidential Fellows, recognizing effective, inspiring
and distinguished teaching of undergraduate students.
The winners are: Rosemary J. Avery, professor of
policy analysis and management; Timothy Fahey, professor of
natural resources; and Stephen L. Sass, professor of materials science and
engineering. The awards -- $5,000 for five years
for each faculty member -- are named for the emeritus chair of the Cornell Board of
Trustees, Stephen H. Weiss '57, who endowed the program. They recognize excellence
in teaching, advising and outstanding efforts toward instructional improvement and
development. The appointed fellows are permitted to hold the title of
Weiss fellow simultaneously with any other named professorship.
A dinner on campus Oct. 19 honored both the Weiss fellows and the 2000 recipients of another distinguished faculty
award -- the Appel Fellowships for Humanists
and Social Scientists in the College of Arts and Sciences. The Appel fellows, named in
the spring of 2001, are: Stephen Hilgartner, associate professor of science and technology studies,
and Viranjini Munasinghe, associate professor of
anthropology.
Established in 1995 by Helen and Robert Appel,
the fellowships honor creativity in teaching and research
among newer faculty. They enable recipients to take
a year's sabbatical leave, at full salary, to write, develop new
courses, conduct research or otherwise enrich
their teaching and scholarship.
Here are biographies of this year's honorees, adapted from those compiled for
the awards dinner:
Rosemary Avery
Avery received her bachelor's degree in home
economics from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa,
in 1971. She earned her M.S. in family resource
management at Ohio State University in 1984. Upon gaining her
doctorate in 1988, she was appointed assistant professor in
the Department of Consumer Economics and Housing
at Cornell. In 1994 she became an associate professor in
the Department of Policy Analysis and Management, and
since 2000 has served as professor and associate chair of
that department. She is the editor of Consumer Interests
Annual and serves on the editorial boards of numerous
other professional publications. Known for learning the names
of all of her many students by the end of the first week of
class, Avery is the recipient of many teaching awards,
including the SUNY Chancellors Award for Excellence in
Teaching in 1998 and Cornell's Merrill Presidential Scholars
teacher recognition in 1993, 1998, 1999 and 2001.
Timothy Fahey
Fahey received his bachelor's degree in biology
with high honors from Dartmouth College in 1974. He earned
his M.S. in 1977 and his Ph.D. in 1979, both in botany at
the University of Wyoming. After a year spent as an
assistant professor of biology at Fort Lewis College, he came
to Cornell as an assistant professor in the Department
of Natural Resources in 1982. In 1988, he was made
an associate professor and he became a full professor in
1996. Fahey is a leader in the application of
biogeochemistry research methodologies to the analysis of forest
ecosystem dynamics, and he has inspired and motivated
countless students with his passion for his studies and teaching. He
is a Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor.
Stephen Sass
Sass received his bachelor's degree in chemical
engineering from City College of New York in 1961 and
his Ph.D. in materials science from Northwestern University
in 1966. After a year as a Fulbright scholar at the
Technische Hogeschool in the Netherlands, he came to Cornell as
an assistant professor in 1967. He became an associate
professor in 1973 and a full professor in 1979. Sass has
conducted research in England, Germany and Israel and has
authored or co-authored nearly 200 publications. His research
interests include the relationship among the atomic
structure, chemistry, bonding and properties of metal,
intermetallic compound and metal-ceramic interfaces, with the goal
of tailoring them to achieve desirable properties. And he
is well known for involving students, including
undergraduates, in rigorous research.
Stephen Hilgartner
Hilgartner received his bachelor's degree summa
cum laude from Cornell in 1983. He went on to earn his
master's degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1984 and
his Ph.D. in sociology from Cornell in 1988. He was
an assistant professor of social medicine at the
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons from
1987 to 1994. He returned to Cornell in 1995 and is an
associate professor in the Department of Science and
Technology Studies. In addition, he is the founder and chair of
the Ethical, Legal and Social Issues focus area of the
Cornell Genomics Initiative. His research interests span the
fields of biology, ethics and values, biotechnology and
medicine. Hilgartner's most recent book is Science on Stage:
Expert Advice as Public Drama (2000). He currently is
completing a book on the Human Genome Project.
Viranjini Munasinghe
Munasinghe, an associate professor in the
Department of Anthropology and in the Asian American
Studies Program, earned her international baccalaureate
at the United World College of South East Asia in 1982
and her bachelor of arts degree in social anthropology at
the University of Sussex, Great Britain, in 1985. She went
on to complete her M.A. in cultural anthropology at
Duke University in 1988 and her Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins
University in 1994. Her areas of specialization include issues
of race, ethnicity, nationalism and the politics
of identity, especially pertaining to the Caribbean region and
the Asian Diaspora in the new world. Her book, Callaloo
or Tossed Salad? East Indians and the Cultural
Politics of Identity in Trinidad (fall 2001), is being published
by Cornell University Press.
October 25, 2001
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