Kudos

Perspectives: Research and Creative Activities at SIUC, Fall 2007

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Kudos

History professor Holly Hurlburt, whose research concerns women and political power during the Renaissance, was awarded a prestigious one-year Villa I Tatti Fellowship in Florence, Italy, through the Harvard University Center for Renaissance Studies. Hurlburt's first book, published last year, examined the private and public identities of the dogaresse, wives of the elected doges of medieval and early modern Venice.

Ike Mathur, Henry J. Rehn professor of finance, will be managing editor of the Journal of Banking and Finance, a highly respected world economic and financial research publication, beginning in 2008. In addition, a research article co-written by Mathur was named the Journal of Financial Research's Outstanding Article for 2006.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded pharmacology professor Donald Caspary a $1.5 million grant to study the impact of aging on changes in the brain related to tinnitus (ringing in the ears), a condition that plagues many people. Caspary and colleagues at the SIU School of Medicine study the biochemical and neural mechanisms of tinnitus in animal models and patients, working toward the development of new therapies.

Archaeologist Izumi Shimada was named SIUC's Outstanding Scholar for 2007 for his nearly three decades of work unearthing clues to pre-Incan cultures in Peru. His research, which was featured in Perspectives' spring 2002 cover story, established the evidence for the beginning of the Bronze Age in the Americas, says colleague Anne Marie Hocquenghem of the French Institute of Andean Studies.

Shimada also helped establish a museum in northern Peru showcasing this heritage and the artifacts found over the course of the project. He received Peru's Congressional Medal of Honor in December 2006.

Larry Hickman, philosophy professor and director of SIUC's Center for Dewey Studies, was named the 2007 Phi Kappa Phi Scholar. The national scholastic honor society gives the award only once every three years. Hickman was named for overseeing the editing of philosopher John Dewey's correspondence and for producing electronic editions of Dewey's writings; for his several books; for writing and narrating an award-winning documentary on Dewey; and for helping to establish other Dewey centers abroad. Hickman was profiled in our fall 2002 issue.

SIUC is the only university with more than one national Phi Kappa Phi Scholar. In 2001, physiology professor Andrzej Bartke received the honor.

What began as a thesis project nearly five years ago has wound up as an HBO documentary for SIUC graduate Hilla Medalia. "Daughters of Abraham," which won the 2004 Angelus Award and the SIU Alumni Association's 2004 Outstanding Thesis Award, concerned a March 2002 suicide bomb attack that killed two 17-year-old girls, one Palestinian (the suicide bomber) and the other Israeli. Film producers John and Ed Priddy financed a reworking and expansion of the documentary as "To Die in Jerusalem," which is airing on HBO in November.

Medalia, who earned her master's degree in professional media practice under the mentorship of radio/television professor Jan Thompson, did additional research, re-shot interviews and scenes, and after many efforts arranged for a meeting—the film's emotional highlight—between the mothers of the two girls.

A visiting assistant professor in SIUC's Cinema and Photography Department has been awarded a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship. Bruce Charlesworth, internationally known since the 1980s for his photographs, films, and multimedia installations, was among 189 artists, scholars, and scientists selected from nearly 2,800 applicants. Part of his $40,211 stipend, he says, will go toward research for the development of a new multi-room, multimedia installation about anticipation and the passage of time in which viewers will be active participants as they move through the exhibit.