USC Dornsife faculty and staff honored for extraordinary service and contributions
Eleven faculty and staff members at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences were lauded for their exceptional service to the College during a March 3 luncheon hosted by USC Dornsife Dean Amber D. Miller.
The event, which took place at USC Amy King Dundon-Berchtold University Club at King Stoops Hall on the University Park campus, was the first in-person gathering for the awards since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020.
Six faculty members received Albert S. Raubenheimer Awards in recognition of outstanding teaching, scholarship and service within the university.
“The Raubenheimer Awards are among the highest honors a Dornsife faculty member can receive, and the nominations are always very competitive,” said Miller. “They’re also some of my favorite awards to present because they reflect the appreciation of colleagues for the honoree’s excellence across our entire mission — research, teaching and service.”
Five staff members who demonstrated exceptional service to USC Dornsife were given Outstanding Staff Achievement Awards.
“We often hear about Dornsife’s leading scholars and the talented students who come here,” said Renee Perez, vice dean, administration and finance, who presented the staff awards. “But our academic environment exists in large part because of the commitment and creativity that our staff brings every day.”
Raubenheimer Awards – Senior Faculty
Stephen Bradforth, professor of chemistry and senior advisor to the dean for research strategy and development
Bradforth’s nomination noted how his research has led to numerous advances, including ways to optimize energy conversion in solar cells and improved radiation treatments using nanoparticle therapies to kill cancer cells. They hailed Bradforth’s leadership in improving instructional and laboratory experiences at research universities and transforming how chemistry and natural sciences are taught to all students, including those from underserved communities.
Suzanne Hudson, associate professor of art history
In nominating Hudson, her colleagues hailed her as a prominent scholar and critic of modern and contemporary painting who has produced five scholarly books, co-edited a volume of critical essays and produced 50 publications in book and essay form for major galleries and museums.
They pointed to her success in connecting with museum curators and gallery directors and taking students on behind-the-scenes tours of institutions to understand what it means to work in the art history field. Her contributions include service on department merit and search committees, the USC provost’s committee to find a dean for the USC Roski School of Art and Design, and the search for a USC Pacific-Asia Museum director.
Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, professor of sociology and gender studies
Parreñas was lauded as a prolific researcher and writer, with six books currently in print and one under contract with a publisher. Her acclaimed Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo (Stanford University Press, 2011) earned the distinguished book award from the American Sociological Association (ASA) Labor and Labor Movements section. The ASA also granted her one of its highest honors in 2019, the Jessie Bernard Award.
Parreñas has served on and chaired numerous PhD dissertation committees, and she frequently coaches graduate students on how best to shape their applications for research funding from prestigious granting institutions.
Raubenheimer Awards – Junior Faculty
Christopher Beam, assistant professor of psychology and gerontology
Through his research, Beam explores how social experiences early in the human lifespan contribute to age-related development of cognitive functioning, personality and the onset of psychopathology. He has published 36 peer-reviewed articles and four book chapters.
His funding includes an Alzheimer’s Association Research Foundation Fellowship and an R01 from the National Institutes of Health National Institute on Aging. He received a 2020 “Rising Star” Award from the Association for Psychological Science.
Beam mentors eight doctoral candidates, and he has served on several departmental committees including the executive, steering and merit review committees.
Jacob Nebel, assistant professor of philosophy
Nebel, who joined the USC Dornsife faculty in 2019, is the author of 14 published or forthcoming articles, including five in Ethics, the top-ranked journal in moral philosophy. He has given 12 presentations at important venues including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the London School of Economics, Oxford, Zurich and Stockholm, and at major professional society meetings.
Nebel helped design a new course called “Ethics, Technology and Values,” which he began co-teaching this semester, and he serves on numerous departmental committees, is an editor and referee for leading journals and does important work pertinent to USC Dornsife’s Academy in the Public Square initiative.
Stephanie Shih, assistant professor of linguistics
She brings the methods of cognitive science and machine learning to the analysis of how meaning, sound and grammatical form interrelate in the acts of speaking and listening. Her research has been published in the top journals in her field.
She has contributed significantly to the linguistics department’s student programs, designing courses that are responsive to areas of student interest. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced courses online, she mailed lab kits to each student’s home to keep them engaged.
Shi’s service activities include faculty search committees and co-advising the organizing committee for the 2018 Southern California Meeting on Phonology.
Outstanding Staff Achievement Awards
Michelle Boston, associate director of digital content and senior writer
Since joining the USC Dornsife Office of Communication more than 11 years ago, Boston’s contributions have ranged from writing news and feature stories to managine the website to handling media requests and outreach, along with myriad other responsibilities.
For the past several years, Michelle has led the considerable expansion of USC Dornsife’s social media presence, driving exceptional growth across all channels.
Last year, Boston took a lead role on the website redesign and update project, working to prepare the current, outdated website for migration to a new platform. She recently joined the new creative content team, where she will guide digital content strategy for the College website.
Elizabeth Logan, associate director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West
Logan helped develop the faculty-led initiative grant proposal that launched The West on Fire project at the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. She led work on a complex grant proposal that garnered $300,000 from the Sierra Nevada Conservancy and played a lead role in advancing the work of the Chinatown History Project team, a group of about two dozen researchers, curators and community leaders.
In nominating Logan, her colleagues said she has “inimitable abilities to focus, all at the same time, on guiding our day-to-day while also helping us contemplate ‘blue sky’ opportunities, the longer term, and bold ideas about impacting our audiences and partners.”
Randy Phelps, facilities coordinator at the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center
Phelps has served as facilities coordinator at the Wrigley Marine Science Center on Santa Catalina Island for 25 years. His work requires that he frequently be exposed to the elements and on-call to address problems arising in the middle of the night.
Phelps is often tasked with projects that previously were not a part of his job accountabilities, functions that have often proven critical to the continued operations of the center and sometimes require Phelps to enroll in self-led training.
He has shared his newfound knowledge with other staff and students, leading discussions about the wastewater plant’s operations, chemistry and standards of water treatment.
Guillermo Ruiz, office manager for the department of linguistics
Ruiz stepped in to carry out all staff duties for the linguistics department following the sudden and unexpected departure of another staff member. His added responsibilities included logistics for job searches for two assistant professor positions, including coordination of travel and presentations for eight job candidates — all while managing his regular tasks and those of the program specialist.
His nominators said Ruiz “has done this very courageously and with a wonderfully positive spirit, never complaining or turning down requests from the faculty to carry out extra tasks,” enabling the department to weather challenges with aplomb.
Corey Schultz, instructional laboratory manager
A member of the Department of Chemistry for more than 23 years, Schultz manages the infrastructure and logistics of laboratories serving more than 30 different groups that focus on a wide range of work, from ultrafast spectroscopy to synthetic organic chemistry and molecular biology.
Schultz contributed significantly to the renovation of many chemistry labs, including a three-year, $10 million project replacing the infrastructure for all departmental lab courses. He also developed safety policy and helped manage the ramp-down and restart of lab research during the pandemic.
During the luncheon, three retiring faculty members also were recognized for their years of service to USC Dornsife: Lawrence Green, professor of English; Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Florence Everline Professor of Sociology; Chien-Ping Ko, Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences.