Accolades

Two current art exhibitions — one in Detroit and one in the Bronx, New York — feature works by Pitt Professor Emeritus of Studio Arts Paul Glabicki. An internationally acclaimed multimedia artist, Glabicki taught in Pitt’s Department of Studio Arts for 40 years and served as its chair from 2000-2003.  

HUMAN/NATURE: Selections from the Kim Foster Gallery is already underway at the Elaine L. Jacob Gallery at Wayne State University in Detroit and runs through March 23. Each artist, including Glabicki, examines the journey toward decoding the relationship between humans and nature, and how humans are organically drawn to consider this connection.

TICK-TOCK: Time in Contemporary Art runs Feb. 20 through May 5 at the Lehman College Art Gallery in the Bronx. Glabicki and the other artists were inspired by traditional and contemporary tools we use to chart time, from clocks and calendars to sundials and stopwatches.

Pitt faculty member David Pettersen has been inducted into the Ordre des Palmes académiques (Order of the Academic Palms) as a Chevalier (Knight) by the French government. The honor, said Pittsburgh’s Honorary French Consul Jean-Dominique Le Garrec, recognizes Pettersen’s efforts in establishing a faculty exchange between Pitt and the Université Lumière Lyon 2, his contributions to the expansion of French culture around the world and his research and writing about French literature and cinema. Pettersen is an associate professor of French and film and media studies and the associate director of the newly renamed Film and Media Studies Program in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. He will be recognized at an award ceremony in February.

Doug Weber, associate professor of bioengineering, and Lee Fisher, assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, were one of four University of Pittsburgh teams to receive a $5.3 million National Institutes of Health BRAIN award. 

The pair will research ways to eliminate phantom limb pain, a phenomenon where amputees feel pain from the missing limb, which can be long-lasting and severe. They will investigate how electric stimulation may both counter phantom limb pain and improve movement and balance in patients. If successful, improvements in sensory feedback could improve the quality of life for prosthetics users.

Tristen Inagaki and Jamie Hanson have been named 2017 Rising Stars by the Association for Psychological Science, the leading international organization devoted to advancing psychology across disciplines. The Rising Star award is given to newly minted PhDs whose earliest work has already shown promise for broad impact far into the future of the field.

Inagaki is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology. Using methods from social and health psychology, as well as pharmacology and affective neuroscience, she studies how we form and maintain social connections, and how those bonds positively influence our mental and physical health.

Hanson is an assistant professor of psychology and a research scientist at Pitt’s Learning Research and Development Center. His work focuses on the neural circuitry that children and adolescents use to learn about different aspects of their environment. He also studies how such circuits are shaped by early life stress and why neural changes due to this stress confer risks for negative outcomes.

Brian Primack, dean of the University of Pittsburgh’s University Honors College, will address faculty, students and guests as speaker of Pitt’s 42nd annual Honors Convocation at 3 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 23, at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland. Primack is also the Bernice L. and Morton S. Lerner Endowed Chair; the director of the Center for Research on Media, Technology, and Health; and a professor of medicine, pediatrics, and clinical and translational science. He was named leader of the University Honors College in summer 2017.

At the beginning of 2018, the American Psychological Association published its first comprehensive report on stress and health disparities, compiled by a working group of interdisciplinary scientists from top institutions around the country, which included the University of Pittsburgh’s Peter Gianaros.

A professor of psychology and of psychiatry, Gianaros studies how the human brain influences and is influenced by physical health — particularly cardiovascular health, a major focus of the APA report. He directs the behavioral neurophysiology lab at Pitt and he is the former director of the Multimodal Neuroimaging Training Program of Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University. The National Institutes of Health recently awarded Gianaros and Anna Marsland, also a professor of psychology and leading expert on the immune system and stress, funding to study socioeconomic disadvantage and brain aging.

“The new APA report is timely. Discrimination, living in poverty, and other sources of stress are linked to inequalities in health and longevity,” Gianaros said. “These problems will continue to grow unless there is more evidence-based support and advocacy for research funding on health disparities, greater public education and awareness, and community-level interventions that promote health equality for everyone in this country. The work that Dr. Marsland and I are doing is directed at better understanding and addressing these pressing issues.”

The Woiner Foundation of Pittsburgh recently donated $50,000 to the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center’s Melanoma and Skin Cancer Treatment Program, directed by John Kirkwood to support his internationally acclaimed melanoma research.

Under Kirkwood’s direction, more than 20 faculty researchers are leading multiple local, national and international studies that are advancing new therapies for the treatment of melanoma, a cancer that kills more than 10,000 people in the United States each year.

Kirkwood leads a number of highly promising clinical trials with cancer vaccines to spur the body’s own immune system into recognizing and destroying melanoma.

The Woiner Foundation of Pittsburgh recently donated $50,000 to the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center’s Melanoma and Skin Cancer Treatment Program, directed by John Kirkwood to support his internationally acclaimed melanoma research.

Under Kirkwood’s direction, more than 20 faculty researchers are leading multiple local, national and international studies that are advancing new therapies for the treatment of melanoma, a cancer that kills more than 10,000 people in the United States each year.

Kirkwood leads a number of highly promising clinical trials with cancer vaccines to spur the body’s own immune system into recognizing and destroying melanoma.

The Medieval Academy of America has named Pitt faculty member Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski an officer of the organization. Blumenfeld-Kosinski is a distinguished professor of French in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences whose research interests include French medieval literature and culture. She was affiliated with the Medieval Academy of America as a councilor (1998-2000), member of its nominating committee (2001-03) and book review editor (French) for the journal Speculum (2007-12). In 2020, she will assume the presidency of the organization, which has fostered medieval studies since 1925.