JBHE: Latest News for 1/6/11

Honors and Awards

• M. Brian Blake, associate dean for research and professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame, was named a Distinguished Scientist by the Association for Computing Machinery.

Professor Blake is a 1994 graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology. He holds a master’s degree from Mercer University and a Ph.D. in information and software engineering from George Mason University.

• Kristala Jones Prather, assistant professor of chemical engineering at MIT, received the 2010 Junior Bose Teaching Award from the university’s School of Engineering.

Dr. Prather is a 1994 graduate of MIT and holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

• William Lawson, the founder of the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, was awarded the Presidential Medallion from the University of Houston. Reverend Lawson was a key figure in developing the African-American studies program at the university.

• John S. Wilson Jr., executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, was presented the Presidential Medal from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

Dr. Wilson, who taught at George Washington University prior to joining the Obama administration, is a graduate of Morehouse College. He holds two master’s degrees and an educational doctorate from Harvard University.

• Frances Smith Foster, the Charles Howard Candler Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Emory University, was awarded the 2010 Jay B. Hubbell Medal from the Modern Language Association. She is the first African-American woman to win the Hubbell Medal.

Professor Foster is a graduate of Miami University. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Southern California and a Ph.D. in British and American literature from the University of California at San Diego.