Namrata Ray, doctoral student, sociology, and Jugal Marfatia, graduate student, mathematics and statistics, were selected as finalists in the National Football League’s Big Data Bowl 2020 based on the innovation, accuracy, relevance, and clarity of their submission, which they presented at the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.
Andra Chastain, assistant professor, history, WSU Vancouver, won the Michael Katz Award for best dissertation in urban history from the Urban History Association, and she won the John Scholes Transport History Research Prize from the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic, and Mobility.
Sarah Whitley, assistant professor, sociology, began a three-year term in August 2019 as the Region 10 Representative for the sociological honor society, Alpha Kappa Delta.
Thabiti Lewis, associate professor, English, WSU Vancouver, was awarded the 2019 Black Metropolis Research Consortium Short-term Fellowship to complete his book on Chicago’s role in shaping the Black Arts Movement. Lewis also was appointed interim associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at WSU Vancouver for AY 2019-20.
Justin Denney, professor, sociology, won a 2018 IPUMS Health Surveys Research Award from tne University of Minnesota Population Research Center for his coauthored article “Neighborhood Concentrated Disadvantage and Adult Mortality: Insights for Racial and Ethnic Differences” in Population Research and Policy Review.
Leah Ruiz and Brianne Posey, doctoral students, Melanie-Angela Neuilly, associate professor, and Craig Hemmens and Mary Stohr, professors, criminal justice and criminology, coauthored “Certifying Death in the United States” in Journal of Forensic Sciences. Their article also was selected as a “2018 Noteworthy Article” by the journal editors.
Eric Dexter, doctoral candidate, environment, WSU Vancouver, was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie post-doctoral research fellowship by the European Commission.
Greg Yasinitsky, Regents Professor, music, released a new CD titled YAZZ Band (WSU Recordings). The disc also features music faculty members Sarah Miller, Brian Ward, and David Jarvis, along with alumni Patrick Sheng and PJ Kelley, and Professor Emerita Ann Marie Yasinitsky. YAZZ Band was recorded in the WSU Recording Studio by David Bjur, recording engineer. Bebop Spoken Here, UK, named YAZZ Band among “CDs of the Year – Big Bands.”
Veronica Sandoval, doctoral candidate, languages, cultures, and race, was keynote speaker at the annual Children of Aztlan Seeking Higher Education (CASHE) conference whose theme was “You are the ripple that causes the movement.” She also was awarded the Arnold and Julia Greenwell Scholarship for Social Sciences and Humanities from the Graduate School at WSU and received the Chicana Caucus Student Scholarship at the 45th Annual Meeting of National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies. Sandoval authored “Immigration, Surveillance, and Unaccompanied Minors in the Rio Grande Valley: Nepantla Praxis in the Works of Borderland Artist Celeste De Luna” in 2018 El Mundo Zurdo 6 (Aunt Lute Press).
Cheryl Schultz, associate professor, biological sciences, WSU Vancouver, received a 2018 Project of the Year award from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program for her project “Endangered Butterflies as a Model System for Managing Source‑Sink Dynamics on Department of Defense Lands.”