UMass ADVANCE Honors 2021 Faculty Peer Mentor Awardees

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Sarah Fefer
Sarah Fefer

UMass ADVANCE is pleased to announce the 2021 ADVANCE Faculty Peer Mentor Award winners. This annual award recognizes the critically important work faculty members perform in mentoring and supporting their colleagues’ professional development and success. The winners were selected from a competitive pool of nominees, and were honored by John McCarthy, provost and senior vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, and Laurel Smith-Doerr, ADVANCE PI, during the ADVANCE Annual Lecture event on March 24. Shirley Malcom, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, gave the distinguished keynote address “Science in the Time of COVID and America’s Reckoning with Race” as the ADVANCE lecture to an audience of over 140 attendees on zoom.

“We congratulate this year’s ADVANCE faculty mentor award winners for the important work they do as mentors and sponsors of their colleagues,” said Laurel Smith-Doerr. “Peer mentoring is an important component of faculty equity. It helps build inclusive communities and makes UMass faculty feel valued and included.”

The UMass ADVANCE Faculty Peer Mentor Award in the College of Education was awarded to Sarah Fefer, associate professor of school psychology and associate director of Center for Youth Engagement.

The UMass ADVANCE Faculty Peer Mentor Award in the College of Engineering was awarded to Michael Knodler, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the University of Massachusetts Transportation Center.

The UMass ADVANCE Faculty Peer Mentor Award in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts was awarded to Judyie Al-Biali, associate professor of performance and theater for social change.

The UMass ADVANCE Faculty Peer Mentor Award in the College of Information and Computer Sciences was awarded to Michelle Trim, informatics associate program director and senior lecturer II.

The UMass ADVANCE Faculty Peer Mentor Award in the College of Natural Sciences (CNS) was awarded to Catherine Benincasa, senior lecturer II, mathematics and co-chair of the CNS Lecturers’ Council and Erika Hamilton, senior lecturer II and director of microbiology laboratory teaching services and co-chair of the CNS Lecturers’ Council.

The UMass ADVANCE Faculty Peer Mentor Award in the College of Nursing was awarded to Karen Kalmakis, associate professor and director of the doctor of nursing practice program.

The UMass ADVANCE Faculty Peer Mentor Award in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences was awarded to Amy Schalet, associate professor of sociology and co-creator and inaugural director of the Public Engagement Project.

The UMass ADVANCE Faculty Peer Mentor Award in the Isenberg School of Management was awarded to Shirley Shmerling, senior lecturer II in operations and information management.

The UMass ADVANCE Faculty Peer Mentor Award in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences was awarded to Sofiya Alhassan, associate professor of kinesiology and graduate program director.