USC Dornsife News Briefs

Postdoctoral Scholar Ashim Nandi has been selected to participate in the 73rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting as a Mars Fellow.

In a new study, PhD student Daniel Aslan sheds light on the optimal degree of forward lean for runners who want to save energy.

Nayan Shah, professor of American studies and ethnicity and history, has been elected a member of the Society of American Historians. Membership in the society serves as testament to the literary excellence demonstrated in a scholar’s portrayal and analysis of American history, and this recognition celebrates Shah’s exceptional narrative prowess and the scholarly distinction in his historical work.

Joan Flores-Villalobos, assistant professor of history, has received the 2024 David Montgomery Award from the Organization of American Historians (OAH) for her book The Silver Women: How Black Women’s Labor Made the Panama Canal (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023). Silver Women illuminates the oft-overlooked contributions of Black West Indian women to the construction of the Panama Canal. OAH, the largest professional organization dedicated to U.S. history, recognized Flores-Villalobos fo her contribution to scholarship and historical discourse.

Laura Melissa Guzman, Gabilan Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences and Quantitative and Computational Biology, has been named a 2024 Fellow of the Ecological Society of America. The society’s fellowship program – which includes fellows and early career fellows – recognizes contributions its members make to ecological research, communication, education, management and policy. Guzman, whose research intertwines statistical methodologies, ecological principles and empirical endeavors to unravel the intricacies of biodiversity decline, is among 10 new early career fellows elected for advancing the science of ecology and showing promise for continuing contributions.

Greta Panova, Gabilan Distinguished Professor in Science and Engineering and professor of mathematics, has been named a 2024 Fellow in Mathematics by the Simons Foundation. Renowned for her expertise in combinatorics, probability and theoretical computer science, Panova’s selection underscores her exceptional contributions to the field. The Simons Fellows program extends academic leaves from one term to a full year, aiming to enable recipients to focus solely on research for the long periods often necessary for significant advances.

Duncan Ryuken Williams, director of the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture and professor of religion, American studies and ethnicity and East Asian languages and cultures, was honored with an Award of Excellence by the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) at its annual gala on April 6 for his “pioneering work on the Irei project, a monumental initiative that honors Japanese American World War II incarcarees and promotes global peace.”

Percival Everett, Distinguished Professor of English, was named on the Los Angeles Times’ list of the 50 Best Hollywood Books of All Time. His book Erasure (Graywolf Press, 2011) appears at No. 20 on the list, which encompasses fiction and nonfiction across genres and decades and was compiled from a survey of experts in the worlds of publishing and entertainment. The book was the basis for the Academy Award-winning movie American Fiction.

Evelyn Alsultany, professor of American studies and ethnicity, was named on the Los Angeles Times’ list of the 50 Best Hollywood Books of All Time. Her book Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11 (NYU Press, 2012) appears at No. 46 on the list, which encompasses fiction and nonfiction across genres and decades and was compiled from a survey of experts in the worlds of publishing and entertainment. The L.A. Times notes that Alsultany’s book “keenly avoids endorsement of neat categories like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ representation, aiming instead to complicate how it is that media images on either side of that divide can fuel meanings that end up justifying policies of exclusion and inequality.”