Jieun Lee
Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2019
Jieun Lee completed a Ph.D. in theatre and performance studies and a graduate certificate in women’s studies in spring 2018 and is now
Ana M. Gutiérrez-Colina
Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2019
Ana M. Gutiérrez-Colina, a recent graduate student in the Department of Psychology and current postdoctoral fellow at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, investigates cross-cutting issues relevant to multiple pediatric populations. Her work examines adherence to prescribed medication regimes, quality of life, cognitive and psychosocial function, and medical outcomes. She has pursued novel research ideas with direct clinical implications and has demonstrated sophistication in study conceptualization, design
Bertranna Muruthi
Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2018
Bertranna Muruthi is a doctoral graduate of the Marriage and Family Therapy program in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences. Central to her research is the analysis of factors related to risk and resilience for immigrant families. She is developing interventions to advance the well-being of immigrant families in the Washington, D.C., metro area. Muruthi uses culturally responsive methods to examine the family as the unit of analysis within the context of communities and the organizations that serve them. She has provided vital knowledge on black immigrant mother-daughter communications about substance abuse and risky sexual behaviors at a time when black women remain one of the most vulnerable populations in the U.S. With a steady stream of external funding and 13 publications in peer-reviewed journals, she is on her way to becoming a powerhouse in the field of family sciences. She is an assistant professor at Virginia Tech.
Alexandra Scharf
Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2017
Alexandra Scharf, a recent doctoral graduate in bioengineering and large animal medicine and surgery, is recognized for her research in MRI-based molecular and cellular imaging and the application of this technology to cell-based, regenerative therapies. Scharf has been instrumental in developing techniques using equine and ovine models of tendonitis to elucidate the contribution of cell therapy to the overall soft tissue healing process. Specifically, using iron particle labeling techniques, she has been able to trace the cells in the tendon for up to two weeks from injection. This work has led to a series of remarkable opportunities to perfect the delivery as well as understand the therapeutic benefits and the predictability of outcomes following cellular treatment of injured soft tissues. Scharf is now pursuing her veterinary degree in large animal medicine at UGA.
Daniel Becker
Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2018
Daniel Becker, a recent doctoral graduate in ecology, is recognized for his explorations of food subsidies and infectious disease both broadly and in vampire bats. In Latin America, vampire bat populations have expanded during recent decades in response to the proliferation of livestock, which are a readily available food source for these blood-feeding animals. For his thesis research, he traveled to Belize and Peru to capture bats, and in the laboratory, he compared how the animals’ diet, immune measures, movement, and infection by bacterial and viral pathogens differed in areas with high versus low livestock abundance. He found that some pathogens have taken advantage of higher bat density and contact rates in livestock-provisioned areas. He has published 14 manuscripts since 2014, serving as first author for nine, and he has 10 more papers in review or ready to submit. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at Montana State University.
David K. Thomson
Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2017
David K. Thomson, a recent doctoral graduate in history, is recognized for his groundbreaking scholarship on financing of the American Civil War, which cost the federal government $3.2 billion. Thomson traveled across the U.S. and globally to understand the role of finance in securing victory for the Union cause. His dissertation uncovers the degree to which Wall Street, investment banking and the democratization of the sale of financial instruments all trace their roots to the Civil War, laying a foundation for the rise of the U.S. as a dominant player in global finance in the 20th century. His manuscript documents not just the financial history of the bond drive but also the social history of those who sold the bonds and the thousands of ordinary citizens who were persuaded to invest in the debt of an imperiled nation. Thomson is currently an assistant professor at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut.
Sarah Budischak
Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2016
Sarah Budischak, a recent doctoral graduate in ecology, studies the disease transmission and health implications of parasitic infections. Her dissertation research on the consequences of coinfection—the simultaneous infection of a host by multiple pathogens—in wild African buffalo required extensive field research in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. Budischak received National Science Foundation doctoral research and international travel grants, and she published her research in leading journals, including three dissertation chapters and two manuscripts from previous research. She is also recognized for her mentorship of numerous undergraduates, and for her service as president of Ecoreach, a graduate student-run program that helps coordinate ecological activities for K-12 students, which grew considerably under her leadership. Budischak is now a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University.
Arnab Banerji
Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2016
Arnab Banerji, a recent doctoral graduate in theater and film studies, is recognized for his scholarship on Asian performing arts, Indian cinema and Indian popular culture. His doctoral dissertation, Setting the Stage: A Materialist Semiotic Analysis of Contemporary Bengali Theatre from Kolkata, India, documents and analyzes the production practices and material conditions of Bengali group theater, including design practices and the training of actors, technicians and writers. Banerji has also published several scholarly papers and presented his research at numerous international conferences. After his graduation, he worked briefly as an adjunct professor at the Department of Theatre at Barnard College, where he taught a special topics course on traditions of Indian performance. He is now an assistant professor of theater arts at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Julie Rushmore
Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2015
Julie Rushmore, a recent doctoral graduate in ecology, uses behavioral observations from a community of wild chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda, to examine how disease-causing pathogens are transmitted among the chimps and to evaluate the effectiveness of various disease intervention strategies. Apes are highly social and endangered animals that have been devastated by disease in recent years. Rushmore combined her daily observations of wild chimpanzee social interactions in the field with computational approaches for building and analyzing social contact networks. She developed complex simulation models of pathogen spread on chimpanzee social networks to test the efficacy of different control strategies that can readily be incorporated into realistic models that predict the likelihood of outbreaks, and what can be done to control them. Rushmore is now working towards a DVM degree in UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
Previous Awards
James L. Carmon Scholarship Award 2013
Danielle Atkins
Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award 2015
Danielle Atkins, a recent doctoral graduate in public administration and policy, has already made numerous substantial contributions to her field. She has worked for several years to understand how policies related to women’s reproductive health influence their decision-making and health outcomes. Her research focuses on federal and state-level policy changes that make emergency contraception available without prescription and how these shifts have affected contraceptive behaviors of women. Atkins also studies how school-level policies, such as on-site day care for the children of students, affect teenage sexual behavior and pregnancy risk. Her main focus in this research was to understand whether policies like school-based day care, which is aimed at minimizing costs to students who have already become pregnant, have effects on students who are not yet pregnant in terms of their risk-taking behavior. Atkins is currently an assistant professor of political science at the University of Tennessee.