Student News
Graduate Student Teaching Awards
USC College’s 2005 General Education Graduate Assistant Awards went to: Shayna Maskell of the writing program; Katie Mussack of physics and astronomy; Rebecca Sheehan of history; and James Thing of sociology. The writing program’s James Brecher won this year’s Advanced Writing Teacher Award. Each winner received $1,000.
USC College Doctoral Prizes
USC College honored three newly minted Ph.D. holders in December. Now
in its fourth year, USC College Doctoral Research Awards, which come
with a $1,000 prize, recognize the three best dissertations submitted
in the previous academic year. Winners for 2005 were:
Earth scientist Sarah Pruss won
for her dissertation “Proliferation of Early Triassic Wrinkle
Structures: Implications for Environmental Stress Following the
End-Permian Mass Extinction.” Pruss, who studied with paleontologist
Dave Bottjer, is now the Agouron Geobiology Postdoctoral Fellow in the
department of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard
University. Her research, published in her dissertation and many
journal articles, focused on the recovery of life after the largest
extinction in the history of Earth. She has shown that the mass
extinction, which took place some 248 million years ago at the end of
the Permian, took longer than previously supposed. “Her work throws new
light on a catastrophic time in Earth’s history, and has long-term
implications for Earth’s environment in the present,” said Tom Henyey,
professor and chair of earth sciences.
International relations scholar Laura Sjoberg
won for her dissertation “Gendering Just War: Feminisms, Ethics, and
the Wars in Iraq.” Sjoberg’s dissertation, which is already under
contract to be published as a book, engages historically with the
Christian and Islamic traditions of the “just war.” She offers an
analysis and critique of the contemporary uses and misuses of the just
war theory, and applies gender theory to just war theoretical
constructs. Sjoberg, whose adviser was Professor Ann Tickner, is now a
postdoctoral fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program and the
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University. She is also completing a
law degree at Boston College.
Chemist Melissa Grunlan won for
her dissertation “Cross-linked Siloxanes: Preparation and Properties.”
Grunlan, who worked with Professor William Weber, developed a new kind
of coating to protect marine vessels from marine organisms that attach
and damage ships. The cross-linked siloxane polymer coating, unlike
current anti-fouling products, is not harmful to marine life and offers
an environmentally friendly alternative. Grunlan is now a tenure-track
assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Texas A&M
University.
Geology Students Honored
Good news from the earth sciences department: Graduate student Jake Bailey has received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Award for 2005–2008. And, doctoral student Kurt Frankel received one of the inaugural Mellon Awards for Excellence in Mentoring.
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