BSOS: e-News Spring 2003

Faculty News
Criminology chair Charles Wellford has been named a lifetime National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) "in recognition of extraordinary service to the National Academies in its role as advisor to the nation in matters of science, engineering, and health." He is the only criminologist to have received this honor. Dr. Wellford has also been reappointed to a second three-year term as chair of the NAS Committee on Law and Justices.
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/ccjs/faculty/wellford/index.html

Psychology chair Bill Hall has been appointed to a three-year term on the Advisory Committee of the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate of the National Science Foundation. http://www.bsos.umd.edu/psyc/faculty/whall/index.htm

Vladimir Tismaneanu won the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship with the International Forum for Democratic Studies-National Endowment for Democracy, for the period of October 1, 2003, through July 31, 2004. http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/tismaneanu/

Sociology professor Suzanne Bianchi and government & politics professor Vladimir Tismaneanu have been named Distinguished Scholar-Teachers. http://www.popcenter.umd.edu/people/bianchi_suzanne and
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/tismaneanu/

Congratulations to Daniel Vincent and Seth Sanders in the economics department (http://www.bsos.umd.edu/econ/) and Ralph Dubayah in geography (http://www.geog.umd.edu/people/Dubayah.html) for promotion to full professor. Congratulations to Michael Paolisso ( (http://www.bsos.umd.edu/anth/paolisso.htm) in anthropology and Meyer Kestnbaum (http://www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/) in sociology for promotion to associate professor.

Hearing and Speech Sciences bids a fond farewell to professor Gerald McCall as he retires at the end of this semester. http://www.bsos.umd.edu/hesp/McCall.html

Research News
With funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the Academy of Leadership has launched a two-year study of youth leadership development at four predominantly minority area high schools. Senior Scholar Dr. Tracey Manning heads the effort.
http://www.academy.umd.edu/aboutus/staff/TManning.htm

Criminology chair Charles Wellford and professor David Weisburd recently received a $150,000 grant for "Project Safe Neighborhoods Crime Analyst/ Research Partner" from the Bureau of Justice Assistance. In addition, Weisburd was recently elected president of the Academy of Experimental Criminology. http://www.bsos.umd.edu/ccjs/faculty/wellford/index.html and http://www.bsos.umd.edu/ccjs/faculty/weisburd/index.html.

Criminology professor Shawn Bushway recently received a $134,000 grant for "Understanding Sentencing: The Interactions of Laws, Defendant Characteristics, Prosecutorial Behavior, and Judicial Discretion" from the National Institute of Justice.
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/ccjs/faculty/bushway/index.html

Geography professor Sam Goward has been awarded a $328,000 NASA grant to evaluate potential approaches for monitoring Mid-Atlantic forest-cover change, disturbance, and recovery with passive optical satellite remote sensing observations in support of the North American Carbon Program. http://www.geog.umd.edu/news/NACP.html

Geography professor Chris Justice has been awarded a project to develop an information delivery system to help monitor agricultural regions of the world. The project, "Support of Application of NASA EOS MODIS data by USDA Foreign Agriculture Service," amounts to more than $800,000 for 3 years through the NASA agricultural competitiveness program.
http://www.geog.umd.edu/news/fas.html

Ivan Csiszar, associate research scientist in the Department of Geography, recently received an award in NASA's New Investigator Program in Earth Science. http://www.geog.umd.edu/news/csiszar.html

The world land cover map selected for the 2002 National Geographic Family Reference Atlas is the product of geography department research by Matt Hansen, Ruth DeFries, John Townshend, and Rob Sohlberg. http://www.geog.umd.edu/news/atlas.html

The Center for American Politics and Citizenship, headed by Paul Herrnson, has been awarded $900,000 from the National Science Foundation to study voting technology and ballot design. http://www.capc.umd.edu/research.asp

Government and politics professor Jillian Schwedler was awarded a Fulbright New Century Scholarship for 2003 for her new project on protest and policing in Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt. http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/schwedler/ and http://www.cies.org/NCS/pr_NCS_2.htm

Government and politics professor Marc Howard received a Research Fellowship from the German Marshall Fund for the 2003-04 academic year, to begin writing a new book on comparative citizenship in the countries of the European Union.
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/mhoward/ and http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/mhoward/citizenship.htm

The Maryland Center for Anxiety Disorders has received a $1.5 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. http://www.bsos.umd.edu/psyc

Alumni News
Paul Mandell, a 1995 graduate of the Department of Government and Politics and president of its alumni group, is the college's 2003 Outstanding Alumnus.
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/dean/mandell.html