Annie Lang, professor of Telecommunications, received the Steven H. Chaffee Career Productivity Award from the International Communication Association for sustained work on a communication research problem over an extended period. The selection committee favors research that is original, asks conceptually rich questions, and offers empirically sound evidence. The research must have comprised multiple projects and publications and generated second-generation work among students and other scholars. Rather than recognizing general productivity in the field or contributions to ICA, the award acknowledges sustained and coherent work on a well-focused communication problem central to the communication discipline. Most recipients are members of the discipline and belong to ICA, but other scholars are eligible, regardless of current membership or department affiliation. The award carries a cash prize of $1000, and the winner presents research at the following year’s ICA conference.

Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Paul Newman was co-counsel (along with Kenneth Falk, legal director of the ACLU) for the plaintiffs in the case Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign vs. Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation. This case, filed In Federal Court, arose from the refusal by Bloomington Transit to accept an ad containing the slogan "You can be good without God." Mark Kruzan, the mayor of  Bloomington, refused to allow city attorneys to represent the municipal bus system in the lawsuit. Newman writes, “In the end, the governing board of Bloomington Transit capitulated with the result that the ad will begin appearing on city buses towards the end of August, in time for the beginning of the academic year.” Newman, who is a former chair of linguistics and an internationally recognized authority on African languages as well as being a lawyer, worked on this case on a pro bono basis.

Professor of Iranian Studies Jamsheed Choksy, who has appointments in History, Religious Studies, Ancient Studies, India Studies, Religious Studies, Medieval Studies and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and who is a member of the National Endowment for the Humanities, has become a regular columnist for the Huffington Post.  Choksy also made a case against Iran sanctions in an Aug. 5 article in Foreign Policy.  His piece titled “Iran’s Theocracy Implodes” was published online at RealClearWorld on Aug. 4.

The Association for Psychological Science (APS) (previously the American Psychological Society) recently announced that Roger J.R. Levesque, chair and professor of Criminal Justice, has been elected Fellow. Fellow status is awarded to APS Members who have made sustained outstanding contributions to the science of psychology. Professor Levesque was recognized for his contributions to developmental psychology.

Professor Richard Wilk, Anthropology and Gender Studies, testified as an expert witness in an important land rights case, before the Supreme Court of Belize on June 10 and 12, 2009. Wilk was called as an expert witness in a case in which 31 Mayan villages in Southern Belize are suing the government of Belize, asking for recognition of their traditional land rights. The case was brought by the Maya Leadership Council, which is being assisted by the Indian Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Center at the University of Arizona. As an expert on the archaeology, history and ethnography of Southern Belize, Wilk's testimony over the last 14 years has been important in establishing the history of the Maya presence in the area, and in documenting their traditional and sustainable ways of managing their land in the tropical rainforest. Wilk writes, “Their land is presently under threat from foreign logging concerns, oil prospecting and commercial agriculture, and so far the government of Belize has refused to grant them title over the land they have occupied and farmed for generations.” The case has received extensive local media coverage.

Sonya Atalay, assistant professor of Anthropology, was appointed by the U.S. Department of the Interior to the National Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) Review Committee. The seven member Committee established by congress is charged with monitoring and reviewing repatriation activities in the United States. Scientific organizations and Native American communities were asked to submit nominations for two open seats, and in the fall of 2008 the World Archaeological Congress nominated Dr. Atalay for committee membership. Dr. Atalay is the first Native American to hold one of the scientific seats on the committee. The appointment is for 4-years, ending in January 2013. Sonya Atalay was awarded a Ford Fellowship that will allow her to devote the coming year to research. She'll be working on completing two books during this period. The first relates to community based participatory research in archaeology, focusing on her archaeological work with rural communities in south-central Turkey and Native American communities in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. The second examines critical issues and future challenges of indigenous archaeology.

History Professor John Hanson joins several scholars at Indiana University and Michigan State University in a project awarded $255,000 from the Collaborative Research program at the National Endowment for the Humanities. They will work on a digital library to document and analyze the Pluralism and Adaptation in the Islamic Practice of Senegal and Ghana in 2009-12.  MATRIX, a center for digital projects in the humanities and social sciences at Michigan State, provides the technological expertise, and Professor David Robinson (History, Michigan State) heads the project.  The IU team is led by Hanson and includes Gracia Clark (Anthropology), Maria Grosz-Ngaté (African Studies), and Muhammad al-Munir Gibrill (Near Eastern Languages and Cultures). Hanson and Gibrill are working on the translation of Islamic devotional poetry composed by West African Muslims.

Sumit Ganguly, director of the India Studies Program and Rabindranath Tagore Professor of Indian Cultures and Civilizations,  is currently doing a six-week fellowship as a visiting scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.  He chaired the India session at the National Meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations, June 11th and 12th in New York City.  Ganguly has recently published two articles: “Eastphalia Rising? Asian Influence and the Fate of Human Security” (with David Fidler and Sun Won Kim), World Policy Journal (Vol 26, No 2, Summer 2009, 52-64), and “Hilary, India and the New York Times," Forbes.Com, July 21, 2009.

The Cultural and Linguistic Archive of Mesoamerica project, directed by Jeff Gould, History, and managed by Michael Grove of the Center for Latin Americana and Caribbean Studies, has received a four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access Program.  Totaling nearly $800,000, this 4-year grant will build on the successes of the Central American and Mexican Video Archive, and will greatly enrich scholarship and outreach at IU related to Central America and to minority languages and cultures.

Professor of History Mark Roseman has been asked to be an Ina Levine Invitational Scholar at the Center for Advanced Holocaust United States Holocaust memorial Museum 2010-2011.  “Each year the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council invites two distinguished scholars in the field of Holocaust Studies to take up residency at the Center as the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Senior Scholar-in-Residence and Ina Levine Invitational Scholar.” Scholars in the past have been invited from Australia, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom and the USA.

History faculty member Rebecca Spang was interviewed by NPR for a segment on "The Restaurant of the Future" (Weekend Edition, May 17)

Professor Bruce D. Sales has been named the Virginia L. Roberts Professor of Criminal Justice.

Steve Benard, Sociology, along with co-authors Shelley Correll and In Paik, have been awarded this year’s Roger Gould Prize for the most outstanding article published in American Journal of Sociology for their 2007 article “Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?” Earlier this year, this article was also awarded this year’s Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for outstanding research on work and family.

Bernice Pescosolido, Brea Perry, J. Scott Long, Jack K. Martin, John I. Nurnberger and Victor Hesselbrock have been awarded 2009 Freidson Award from the Medical Sociology Section for their 2008 American Journal of Sociology paper “Under the Influence of Genetics: How Transdisciplinarity Leads Us to Rethink Social Pathways to Illness.” 

Criminal Justice Professor Arvind Verma was invited by the Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis [ECCA] group to present a paper on wild life protection in India. The conference was held at Brasilia, Brazil, July 7-9.

Bernice Pescosolido and Brian Powell, Sociology,  have been awarded the first Carla B. Howery Award for Developing Teacher-Scholars from the Section on Teaching and Learning.

Ethan Michelson, Sociology,  was named co-winner of the 2009 Best Paper Award from the Section on Asia and Asian America for his paper “Lawyers, Political Embeddedness, and Institutional Continuity in China's Transition from Socialism.” published in 2007 in American Journal of Sociology.  He has also been awarded the 2008 Gordon White Prize for the most original article or research report published in The China Quarterly for his 2008 China Quarterly article “Justice from Above or Below? Popular Strategies for Resolving Grievances in Rural China.”

Ho-fung Hung, Sociology,  has won multiple awards for his 2008 American Sociological Review article “Agricultural Revolution and Elite Reproduction.”

1. 2009 Best Article Award from the Section on Political Sociology
2. Co-winner of the 2009 Best Paper Award from the Section on Asia and Asian America
3. Honorable Mention for the 2009 Best Article Award of the Section on Comparative and Historical Sociology

Michael Muehlenbein, Anthropology, received an OVPR Faculty Research Support Program award to conduct research in Sabah, Malaysia on disease communication between humans and orangutans and the impact of tourism on orangutan welfare.

Anthropology Professor Emilio Moran - grant for $199,613 for his proposal "Advancing Land Use and Land Cover Analysis by Integrating Optical and Polarimetric Radar Platforms."

Lee W. Formwalt will retire on September 30 after serving ten years as executive director of the Organization of American Historians.