PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Over the course of the Spring 2025 semester, Brown University faculty members were honored with a wide variety of awards, appointments and accolades for outstanding research, teaching, service and leadership. The scholars, whose fields range from computer science to music to medicine to history, earned both national and global recognition and support for their work. Among such distinctions are the following honors:
Keisha Blain, a professor of Africana studies and history, and Noliwe Rooks, a professor of Africana studies, were elected to the Society of American Historians, which identifies and celebrates distinguished historical writing. Blain was also named editor-in-chief of Global Black Thought, an academic journal published by the University of Pennsylvania Press dedicated to the study of Black intellectual tradition.
Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science, won a Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts from the American Bar Association for his book, “The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It.” Brettschneider’s book earned the top honor in the books category of the awards, which recognize outstanding works that improve the public’s understanding of law and the legal system.
Associate Professor of Music Anthony Cheung received the Andrew Imbrie Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, “which recognizes a mid-career composer of demonstrated artistic merit.” The citation reads: “Anthony Cheung’s music is at once exploratory, sensuous and assured.” Cheung also received the Yvar Mikhashoff Prize, given annually "to international composers and performers of contemporary concert music, as well as individuals or organizations that have demonstrated excellence in the support of works by living composers through performances, programming, recordings and commissions.”
Kim Cobb, a professor of environment and society and of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences and director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, received the Friend of the Planet award from the National Center for Science Education. The award recognized her work in “tirelessly promoting the cause of climate change education” through “her research and engagement and outreach on climate change.”
Professor of Modern Culture and Media Anthony Cokes was recognized by ARTnews for his 2011 video piece, “Evil.16 (Torture.Musik),” 2009–11, which landed at No. 19 on the publication’s list of the 100 Best Artworks of the 21st Century.
Dr. Michele Cyr, a professor of medical science and medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School, received one of two honorary degrees bestowed by Bowdoin College at its 220th Commencement exercises. Cyr, who came to Brown in 1984, studied art and biochemistry at Bowdoin and graduated in 1976.
Professor of Literary Arts Kwame Dawes earned recognition from the National Book Critics Circle. His poetry book, “Sturge Town,” was long-listed for the 2024 National Books Critics Circle Award for poetry.
Bess Frost, a professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry and director of the Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research at Brown’s Carney Institute for Brain Science, was awarded the 2025 Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early-Career Scientist from the Rainwater Charitable Foundation. Frost was recognized for “breakthrough… discoveries [that] have changed our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases and the toxicity caused by tau protein in the brain.” The honor came with $200,000 in research funding.
Professor of Computer Science Maurice Herlihy was awarded an honorary doctorate in informatics from Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, Switzerland. He was honored “for his fundamental contributions, both practical and theoretical, to the programming of concurrent and distributed systems, including his pioneering work on shared memory consistency models and the development of innovative concurrent programming techniques that have been widely adopted in industrial practice."
Professor of Engineering and Brain Science Dr. Leigh Hochberg, along with the team behind the BrainGate consortium, was awarded the Sean M. Healey International Prize for Innovation in ALS from the Sean M. Healey and AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition to Hochberg, the BrainGate team includes 11 researchers across five institutions, including two others from Brown: Professor of Neuroscience and Engineering John Donoghue and Assistant Professor of Engineering (Research) John Simeral.
Professor of Computer Science John Hughes was elected to the ACM SIGGRAPH Academy’s class of 2025, an honorary group of individuals who have made substantial contributions to the field of computer graphics. Hughes was recognized for “outstanding contributions and sustained leadership to computer graphics education and research.”
Ieva Jusionyte, an associate professor of international security and anthropology, won numerous awards for her 2024 book, “Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence Across the Border.” Those include the Juan E. Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America presented by the Duke Human Rights Center; the R.R. Hawkins Award for outstanding scholarly works and the PROSE Award for Excellence in Social Sciences, both from the Association of American Publishers; and the Luciano Tomassini Latin American International Relations Book Award honorable mention.
Professor of Epidemiology Stephen McGarvey received the 2025 Franz Boas Distinguished Achievement Award from the Human Biology Association. This award honors members of the association for exemplary contributions to human biology in science, scholarship and professional service.
Professor of Orthopaedics and Epidemiology Dr. Brett Owens was part of a group of military orthopaedic doctors who received the 2025 Kappa Delta Ann Doner Vaughn Award from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. The doctors’ research was recognized for having “a worldwide impact on treatment options, indications and surgical techniques, leading to what is now considered by many to be a gold standard technique for arthroscopic shoulder stabilization.”
Assistant Professor of Engineering Theresa Raimondo was one of eight “talented young scientists from around the globe” to be elected as the inaugural Early Career Board members of ACS Applied Bio Materials, an interdisciplinary journal publishing original research covering all aspects of biomaterials and biointerfaces.
Dr. Harlan Rich, an associate professor of medical science and medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School, received the Milton Hamolsky Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhode Island Chapter of the American College of Physicians. This award is one of the chapter’s two highest honors and is given to a senior physician “in recognition of academic, clinical, research and administrative excellence.”
Associate Professor of History Seth Rockman won the Philip Taft Labor History Prize (named after a longtime professor of economics at Brown) for his book, “Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery.” The prize committee said, “Both the scope of the book and its grounding in the tactile details of daily life make this a truly stunning book, both provocative and inspiring.” “Plantation Goods” was also named a finalist for Columbia Journalism School’s Mark Lynton History Prize, which “celebrates and recognizes the book-length work of narrative history that best combines intellectual distinction with felicity of expression.”
Dr. Sharon Rounds, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and of medicine and the associate dean for translational science, received the 2025 W. Fred Taylor Award from the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR)/IDeA Coalition & Foundation. The award honors an individual who has made significant contributions to enhancing the impact of the National Institutes of Health Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Program.
Dov Sax, a professor of environment and society and of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, was recognized by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for the article, “A species response to spatial climatic variation does not predict its response to climate change,” which was a Cozzarelli Prize Finalist.
Professor of Humanistic Medicine Dr. Fred Schiffman was awarded the Nicholas E. Davies Memorial Scholar Award for Scholarly Activities in the Humanities and History of Medicine by the American College of Physicians, a national organization of internal medicine physicians.
Dr. Julia Shinnick, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Warren Alpert Medical School, received the Rising Star Award from Society of Gynecologic Surgeons, which recognizes talented young surgeons and their commitment to the society during fellowship experiences and post-fellowship.
Dr. Vivian Sung, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Warren Alpert Medical School, received the President’s Award for Dedicated Services to the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons. The annual award recognizes contributions to the society’s mission, including mentorship.
Dr. Martin Taylor, an assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School, is one of seven early-career biomedical scientists to have been selected as a 2025 Rita Allen Foundation Scholar, which offers grants of up to $110,000 annually for up to five years to conduct innovative research in neuroscience, cancer, immunology and pain. The award will allow Taylor, designated by the foundation as this year's Milton E. Cassel Scholar, to continue research on transposable genetic elements on disease.