Awards Will Support Research by Junior Faculty Members

Yale College Dean Mary Miller has announced the recipients of three annual awards for outstanding junior faculty: the Arthur Greer Memorial Prize, the Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Prize, and the Poorvu Family Award.

Each prize carries an award of funding to support further research. The recipients also will be honored at a dinner in New Haven this month to celebrate their scholarly achievements.

Greer Prize

The Arthur Greer Memorial Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publication or Research is awarded to a junior faculty member in the natural or social sciences.

Associate Professor Jack Harris of the Department of Physics received the 2009 Greer Prize for his groundbreaking research and outstanding teaching. The award honors his innovative approach to the study of mesoscopic quantum systems, creating and implementing new methods and tools for exploring the field.

Heyman Prize

The Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publication or Research is conferred upon deserving junior faculty members in the humanities. This year there were four recipients.

Assistant Professor Milette Gaifman of the Department of the History of Art received the prize for her forthcoming publication, “Aniconism in Greek Antiquity.” The book — the first comprehensive study of the topic in over a century — examines the practice of aniconism (avoiding graphic representation of divine beings or religious figures) through art, text and cultural analysis.

Aaron Gerow, the former director of undergraduate studies for the Film Studies Program and an associate professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, was recognized for his critical work in cinema studies and Japanese area studies and for his recent publication, “A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan.”

Edward Rugemer, an assistant professor in the Departments of African American Studies and History, was honored for his first book, “The Problem of Emancipation: The Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War.” In addition, he is being recognized for his scholarly distinctions, including receiving the Avery O. Craven Award of the Organization of American Historians, and for his mentorship and teaching of undergraduates.

Assistant Professor Caleb Smith of the Department of English was awarded the prize for his book, “The Prison and the American Imagination.” The publication — which combines literary and historical analyses to examine the influential role that prisons have in our society — is part of the “Yale Studies in English” series at Yale University Press.

Poorvu Award

The Poorvu Family Award for Interdisciplinary Teaching was established to recognize and enhance Yale’s strength in interdisciplinary teaching. It provides the means for deserving junior faculty to conduct essential summer research. There were two recipients this year.

Assistant Professor Thierry Emonet of the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology received the award in recognition of his influential role in promoting the study of computational biology at Yale through his course “Systems Modeling in Biology.”

Associate Professor Ludger Viefhues-Bailey, a member of the Department of Religious Studies, was honored for his multidisciplinary approach to the study of modern religion. He is a co-teacher (with Charles Bailyn of the Department of Astronomy) of the Shulman Seminar “Religion and the Big Bang,” which draws insights from astronomy and religion, working to bridge the gap between the two fields.