Appointments and Elections
Dr. Kristi Crowe-White has been appointed chair of the department of human nutrition and hospitality management in the College of Human Environmental Sciences. White has been a nutrition faculty member in the college for nine years. During this time, she has received funding to support her research from sources such as the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense and the American Heart Association. White is an active member of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Dr. Pamela Payne-Foster, professor of community medicine and population health for the College of Community Health Sciences, is serving as a faculty mentor for the American Heart Association’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities Scholars Program. Payne-Foster, who is also a preventive medicine and public health physician, is mentoring a student from Stillman College in Tuscaloosa who plans to attend medical school and who is interested in gynecology and anesthesiology.
Dr. Jimmy Robinson, professor of family medicine and Endowed Chair of Sports Medicine for the College of Community Health Sciences, was selected as a team physician for the USA team competing in January 2020 at the Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne, Switzerland. In addition, Robinson completed the International Olympic Committee’s Drugs in Sports, a six-month course certifying him to manage Olympic and international athletes and to serve as a resource for the IOC and athletes on issues of drug use and drug testing.
Honors and Awards
Allison Grant, assistant professor of art in the department of art and art history, was selected for the 2019 Developed Work Fellowship Award from the Midwest Center for Photography for her photographic series, “Within the Bittersweet.”
Dr. Andrew Raffo Dewar, New College and School of Music, was awarded the Robert M. Stevenson Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology for his 2018 composition “Volver” for actor/vocalist, live electronics and oral history recordings. The Stevenson Prize, the Society for Ethnomusicology’s highest award for composer/ethnomusicologists, is a biennial award for the best composition by a composer who is also an ethnomusicologist. Dewar’s composition, “Volver,” utilized oral history recordings made in the early 1970s by Dr. Christine Valenciana of individuals “repatriated” to Mexico in the 1930s, live electronic sound, and a vocalist/actor to weave together a sonic story of migration, power, nationalism and community.
Dr. Heather White, professor in the English department in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been named the winner of the Modern Language Association of America’s Prize for a Scholarly Edition for “New Collected Poems: Marianne Moore,” published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2017). She is the editor of two previous collections of Marianne Moore’s work: “A-Quiver with Significance: Marianne Moore, 1932–1936,” and “Adversity and Grace: Marianne Moore, 1926–1941,” both from ELS Editions.
Performances and Exhibits
A solo exhibition by Pete Schulte, associate professor in the department of art and art history in the College of Arts and Sciences, was reviewed in Hyperallergic, the online arts magazine. Schulte was recently interviewed with artist Rubens Ghenov in the College Art Association’s CAA Conversations Podcast.
Presentations and Publications
Dr. Alan Blum, professor and Gerald Leon Wallace MD Endowed Chair in Family Medicine for the College of Community Health Sciences, authored “Amidst Treatment Breakthroughs, Also Strive to Prevent,” published in the October 2019 issue of Oncology. Blum is also founding director of The University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society.
Ronald Krotoszynski Jr., the John S. Stone Chairholder of Law in the School of Law, has published “The Disappearing First Amendment,” with Cambridge University Press (2019).
Dr. Mercedes Morales-Aleman, assistant professor of community medicine and population health for the College of Community Health Sciences and the Institute for Rural Health Research, presented her study, “Expanding Barriers to Healthcare Service Access among Latinos/as/x in Alabama with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analyses,” at the American Public Health Association annual meeting. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, found that a significant portion of Latinos in Tuscaloosa County face barriers to health care access due to distance from providers and a lack of public transportation.
The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School has published “The City-sized Hole in U.S. GPS Planning” by Steven Polunsky, director of the Transportation Policy Research Center. The paper identifies shortcomings in critical government processes and recommends a range of actions.
Dr. Cecil Robinson, associate professor and director of Learning Resources and Evaluation for the College of Community Health Sciences, was invited by the Society for Teachers of Family Medicine to present a national webinar titled “Teach Effective Learning Strategies to Your Students: A Best-of-the-Conference Webinar.” The presentation explained effective learning strategies and demonstrated how faculty can employ the science of learning in their teaching.
Representation
Dr. Delynne Wilcox, assistant director for health promotion and wellness of the Student Health Center, has been chosen to represent the American College Health Association on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Update Call Series on Lung Disease Associated with E-Cigarette/Vaping. The weekly conference calls are facilitated by the CDC and include representatives from federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration, the Association of Public Health Laboratories, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, and Senior State/Local Health Officials from across the country. She currently serves as the co-chair for the ACHA Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Coalition.
Submitting Accolades
Faculty and staff are invited to share the following: awards from state, national or international organizations; elections to office in state, national or international organizations; performances and exhibits; publications of books, book chapters or articles in peer-reviewed journals; keynote speeches or addresses at conferences; new positions as assistant or associate deans, department heads or department chairs. Submit accolades to the college or division’s communications specialist or use the online form. Direct questions to cathy.butler@ua.edu.