Thirty-two UW–Madison faculty members, including four from the School of Education, were recently awarded fellowships from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education (OVCRGE) for 2022-23. The awardees span the four divisions on campus: arts and humanities, physical sciences, social sciences, and biological sciences.
“These awards provide an opportunity for campus to recognize our outstanding faculty,” says Steve Ackerman, vice chancellor for research and graduate education. “They highlight faculty efforts to support the research, teaching, outreach, and public service missions of the university.”
The awards are possible due to the research efforts of UW–Madison faculty and staff. Technology that arises from these efforts is licensed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and the income from successful licenses is returned to the OVCRGE, where it’s used to fund research activities and awards throughout the divisions on campus.
The School of Education faculty who were awarded fellowships include:
Lisa Gralnick, a professor in the School of Education’s Art Department, was awarded a WARF named professorship. WARF professorships come with $100,000 and honor faculty who have made major contributions to the advancement of knowledge, primarily through their research endeavors, but also as a result of their teaching and service activities.
Gralnick, whose work explores the use of jewelry as a conceptual reference point, will now be the Fred Fenster Professor of Art. Gralnick mines the history and cultural contexts of both adornment and gold, and as a goldsmith and sculptor, she has explored issues related to value and economics, intimacy and preciousness, and material culture in world history.
Darcy Padilla and Haley Vlach were awarded H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowships.
The Romnes Fellowships recognize faculty with exceptional research contributions within their first six years from promotion to a tenured position. The award is named in recognition of the late WARF trustees president H.I. Romnes and comes with $60,000 that may be spent over five years.
As a documentary photographer, Padilla, an associate professor in the Art Department, focuses on narrative and works on long-term projects about struggle and its trans-generational effects.
Vlach is an associate professor in the School of Education’s Department of Educational Psychology and director of the Learning, Cognition, and Development Lab. Her research examines children’s cognitive development, including their ability to remember information, acquire language, and construct concepts.
Finally, Bernadette Baker, a professor in the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, was awarded a Kellett Mid-Career Award. Kellett Mid-Career Awards support those promoted to tenured positions seven to 20 years ago and who have made key research contributions in their fields.
The award, named for the late William R. Kellett, a former president of the WARF board of trustees and president of Kimberly-Clark Corporation, provides support and encouragement to faculty at a critical stage of their careers and comes with $75,000 to be spent over five years.
Baker researches philosophical, historical, comparative, and sociological disciplines as they intersect with past and present curriculum debates and conceptions of knowledge. She has published widely in educational philosophy, curriculum studies, history of education, disability studies, and cultural studies journals.
Learn more about the 32 UW–Madison faculty who were awarded fellowships for 2022-2023.