Research Council Awards

Eligibility

Must be an associate or full professor in one of the academic departments who:

1. Has been employed at the University for at least five years, and
2. Has not received a Creativity, Research & Scholarship award (formerly, Research Excellence Award) in the last five years

Criteria

Awards will recognize faculty who have distinguished themselves through research, scholarship, and/or creative activities in their fields. The evaluation is based on both the quality and the quantity of the scholarly and creative activities conducted at the university in the last five years, as evidenced by:

• External funding from sponsors, as appropriate
• Publication in refereed journals; authorship of high-quality books or other scholarly works; musical compositions; painting; sculpture; works of performing art; other appropriate scholarly or creative activity in the field
• Inventions/Patents
• Receipt of external prestigious honorary awards or citations
• Prestigious status (e.g., Fellows) in distinguished societies
• Invited lectureships, exhibitions, or other relevant activity

How to Nominate

Nominations can be made by any tenured faculty member or administrator (at the director level or higher) who is familiar with the nominee's accomplishments.

All materials should be emailed as a single PDF document to research@uno.edu from the nominator.

Format

Nomination applications should only include the following items and be organized according to the following categories:

1. Cover letter from nominator
2. An additional support letter from the candidate's chair, dean, or Board of Regents-approved center or institute director
3. Current curriculum vitae in UNO format for the last five years including at least the following items:
   • Refereed publications, articles, presentations, books, and other creative and scholarly works, including musical compositions, painting, sculpture, and performing arts
   • Additional scholarly and creative activities (include panels or workshops you organized or served on)
   • Leadership and service to professional organizations, grant review panels, journal editorships, etc.
   • Externally sponsored grants and contracts received
   • Verifiable scholarly citations (i.e. SCI/SSCI, Google Scholar, Publish or Perish, etc.) with a link to the Google Scholar user profile or other site that is publicly accessible
4. Letter from nominee regarding creative and scholarly career achievements and future objectives in lay terms so that the reviewers, who will be from varying disciplines, can understand the achievements relative to the field. Examples may include:
   • The nominee received a grant in a directorate with 16% funding success rate.
   • The nominee produced a CD, and it was listed in the U.S. Top Ten Jazz Chart.

Selection

The UNO Research Council will review proposals and make recommendation to the Vice President for Research & Economic Development, who will make the final determination.

Announcement and recognition of the winner(s) will take place at the Achievements in Research, Creativity, & Scholarship (ARCS) award ceremony.

Research Focus

Mahdi Abdelguerfi has maintained a high level of uninterrupted federal research funding during the last twenty years. He is a dedicated mentor and supervisor of research assistants, many of whom went on to work at Amazon, General Dynamic, Facebook, and other prestigious corporations. Dr. Abdelguerfi has led efforts to increase enrollment in his department, and he has secured close to $6 million in external funding.

Creativity & Scholarship Focus

M.O. Walsh is one of the most important novelists in the souther United States and the nation. He has been honored with numerous national and regional awards, and he has increased UNO's reputation as a top university for fiction and non-fiction writers. He is a caring and insightful teacher who has created new courses for the benefit of his students.

Linda Flynn-Wilson is a productive researcher who has been extraordinarily successful in securing external funding to help connect families with early intervention services in special education. She is a dedicated teacher who diligently prepares her courses and includes innovative methods and technologies in her instruction, and she has received 11 federal grants and 9 state or university grants totaling more than $6 million. Linda has served on the UNO Research Council for several years.

Research Focus

Wendy Schluchter publishes her work in top-tier journals that build her reputation both nationally and internationally. She plays a major role in international conferences and has partnered with colleagues abroad on recent grants. She has been continuously funded as a PI by the National Science Foundation since 2002, for a total of $1.6 million. Furthermore, she is a mentor to students in the CoSURP program, many of whom have presented work at InnovateUNO and at national conferences. She has been involved as a PI or Co-PI on $3.76 million in grants to promote undergraduate research.

Creativity & Scholarship Focus

Allan Millett is a scholar of unparalleled achievement and depth. His reputation extends far beyond the university and includes service as an officer in international organizations. His interest in the armed forces led him to author numerous monographs, many of which stand out as seminal works. One of his books has been cited by more than 300 other authors. He has received the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing—and he was the second historian to be honored with this award. One of his most acclaimed publications is a multivolume history of the Korean War. He has served as a major professor for 22 master’s students and has helped to place several into PhD programs.

Research Focus

Weilie Zhou is an internationally recognized expert in nanomaterials device fabrication and microscopy. His many accomplishments include high-impact publications, successful funding efforts at both the state and federal levels, participation in national and international conferences, and the training of graduate and undergraduate students. He has been published more than 160 times in top journals including ACS Nano, Nature Communications, and ACS Energy Letters. Four of his papers have been cited more than 180 times each. He has also been a PI, co-PI, or major investigator on more than $10 million in grant funds.

Creativity & Scholarship Focus

M. Kabir Hassan is the epitome of a well-rounded scholar. He has served to advance the field of financial economics immeasurably—through prolific published research, pioneering work in curriculum development, frequent appearances on the international lecture and workshop circuit, and award-winning devotion to teaching and mentoring students. He has secured a total of $575,000 in private funding, cultivating ongoing relationships between UNO and local financial institutions.

Anne Boyd Rioux has amassed a wide-ranging record of scholarly productivity. In the past few years, she has published an acclaimed reception study of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women; a prominent literary biography of Constance Fenimore Woolson; and both a scholarly book and an anthology with Johns Hopkins University Press. She is an accomplished speaker with a considerable national and international scholarly reputation.

Research Focus

Steven Rick, professor of chemistry, uses theoretical and computational approaches to a variety of chemically interesting systems. His work involves the development of more efficient computer simulation methods and better models for molecular interactions. He is applying these methods to the study of liquid water, interface, aqueous solutions, proteins, and ion transport through various materials.

Creativity & Scholarship Focus

Gunter Bischof professor of history and philosophy and director of Center Austria, has led Center Austria since its inception 20 years ago. Since 2013 alone, he has produced seven refereed edited books, four edited volumes that are non-refereed and a dozen book chapters. He has been awarded numerous research grants and helped raise funding for an endowed professorship and an endowed chair. He has earned honors from numerous institutions, including the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and serves on many boards.

Eligibility

Must be an assistant professor in one of the academic departments who:

1. Has passed their third-year review,
2. Has been employed at the University for at least three years, and
3. Has not received a Creativity, Research & Scholarship award (formerly, Research Excellence Award) in the last three years

Criteria

Awards will recognize faculty who have distinguished themselves through research, scholarship, and/or creative activities in their fields. The evaluation is based on both the quality and the quantity of the scholarly and creative activities conducted at the university in the last three years, as evidenced by:

• External funding from sponsors, as appropriate
• Publication in refereed journals; authorship of high-quality books or other scholarly works; musical compositions; painting; sculpture; works of performing art; other appropriate scholarly or creative activity in the field
• Inventions/Patents
• Receipt of external prestigious honorary awards or citations
• Prestigious status (e.g., Fellows) in distinguished societies
• Invited lectureships, exhibitions, or other relevant activity

How to Nominate

Nominations can be made by any tenured faculty member or administrator (at the director level or higher) who is familiar with the nominee's accomplishments.

All materials should be emailed as a single PDF document to research@uno.edu from the nominator.

Format

Nomination applications should only include the following items and be organized according to the following categories:

1. Cover letter from nominator
2. An additional support letter from the candidate's chair, dean, or Board of Regents-approved center or institute director
3. Current curriculum vitae in UNO format for the last three years including at least the following items:
   • Refereed publications, articles, presentations, books, and other creative and scholarly works, including musical compositions, painting, sculpture, and performing arts
   • Additional scholarly and creative activities (include panels or workshops you organized or served on)
   • Leadership and service to professional organizations, grant review panels, journal editorships, etc.
   • Externally sponsored grants and contracts received
   • Verifiable scholarly citations (i.e. SCI/SSCI, Google Scholar, Publish or Perish, etc.) with a link to the Google Scholar user profile or other site that is publicly accessible
4. Letter from nominee regarding creative and scholarly career achievements and future objectives in lay terms so that the reviewers, who will be from varying disciplines, can understand the achievements relative to the field. Examples may include:
   • The nominee received a grant in a directorate with 16% funding success rate.
   • The nominee produced a CD, and it was listed in the U.S. Top Ten Jazz Chart.

Selection

The UNO Research Council will review proposals and make recommendation to the Vice President for Research & Economic Development, who will make the final determination.

Announcement and recognition of the winner(s) will take place at the Achievements in Research, Creativity, & Scholarship (ARCS) award ceremony.

Viktor Poltavets is a talented and impactful scientists with a record of establishing successful UNO programs. He has been an in-demand authority and speaker, with numerous publications and invited lectures. Dr. Poltavets has been a PI or a co-PI on eight different federal and state grans totaling over $2.1 million, and he is an exceptionally dedicated educator who has been instrumental in strengthening the reputation of his department.

David Podgorski has established himself as a nationally and internationally known researcher and continues to build an impressive reputation in his field. He supervises an extremely active research group of graduate students and undergraduate students, and he has recently been awarded private and state grants totaling over $446,000 and has partnered on collaborative projects exceeding $2.4 million. He has helped to inspire many students, and has led to the development of new curriculum concentrations at UNO.

Research Focus

Stephen Ware joined UNO with three “best paper” awards from various conferences and workshops in his field. He has been awarded more than $800,000 by state and federal agencies, including more than $600,000 by the National Science Foundation across three different grants. According to Google Scholar, his work has been cited over 300 times by other scholars. He has an h-index of 10, with one of his papers having been cited 40 times by researchers across the globe.

Research Focus

Uttam Chakravarty, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, joined UNO in 2012 and has been successful in securing external research funding, receiving more than $1 million dollars as a principal investigator and co-investigator. He has published 16 referred journal articles and 25 conference papers and currently supervises four Ph.D. students and three master’s students. At the time of his nomination, his work had been cited 287 times according to Google Scholar.

Creativity & Scholarship Focus

Ryan Gray, assistant professor of anthropology, has secured several grants to fund his research and has acquired external funding to update a lab. He consistently publishes and presents at conferences and is under contract for his second book in addition to having several other book-length works in progress. Gray recently worked on a collaborative effort with the National WWII Museum, the Department of Defense and the University of Innsbruck that resulted in the excavation of a crashed plane from World War II and the hunt for the remains of its Tuskegee Airman pilot.