People

Distinguished Professor tapped for president's science committee

Murnane

President Obama announced his intent last week to appoint Margaret Murnane, Ph.D., to the President's Committee on the National Medal of Science. Murnane is a Fellow of the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) and a Distinguished Professor in the department of physics and of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. She runs a multidisciplinary research group using coherent beams of laser and X-ray light to capture the fastest dynamics in molecules and materials at the nanoscale.

Murnane is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship in 2000, the 2009 Ahmed Zewail Award of the American Chemical Society, the 2010 Schawlow Prize of the American Physical Society and the 2010 R.W. Wood Prize of the Optical Society of America.

She received her bachelor's and master's degrees from University College Cork, Ireland, and her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. She has been with CU since 1999.

School of Public Affairs professor to moderate election forum

University of Colorado Denver Associate Professor Christine Martell, Ph.D., will moderate the first in a series of monthly breakfast forums sponsored by the Buechner Institute for Governance at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver.

The forum will feature a debate on Amendments 60 and 61 and Proposition 101, fiscal measures on the November ballot. Participants include Henry Sobanet, president of Colorado Strategies, LLC, a private consulting firm specializing in economics, Colorado budget issues, legislative affairs and strategic management; Ed Scholz, Denver director of budget and management; and Gregory Golyanksy, vice president of the Colorado Union of Taxpayers.

The Buechner Breakfast is set for 7:30 to 9 a.m. Friday, Oct. 1, at Baur's Ristorante, 1512 Curtis St., Denver. To RSVP, e-mail SPAinfo@ucdenver.edu.

Longtime state worker receives UCD employee of the month honors

Francine Olivas-Zarate, program assistant for the department of English, recently was named Employee of the Month for the University of Colorado Denver campus.  She has worked with the state for 23 years, including the Colorado Department of Transportation, Metropolitan State College of Denver, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and on the downtown campus.

She says she loves every minute of her job: "It's like going from one home to another."

In her spare time she enjoys walking her dog Gidget, cooking for all of her children's friends, reading a good book and exercising or bicycling.

"Winning the employee of the month was so awesome, it makes me feel that all of my contributions all of these years have finally meant something, and someone recognized me for all of it. Thank you," she said.

One of her nominators, Elaine Beemer, said, "She is new to UCD, but stepped right up to the plate as if she had always worked here, which isn't easy in a department with 60 faculty."

Another nominator, Everlyn Sandoval, said, "She is exceptionally organized and is often seen as a go-to person when others need her guidance. She is a great listener and has a warm smile for everyone that she greets."

Professor's grant will boost undergrads in citizenship studies

Mewes

Horst Mewes, an associate professor of political science at the University of Colorado Boulder, along with a Portuguese colleague, received a US-EU Atlantis Excellence Grant of approximately $450,000 spread over the years 2010-2014.

The grant provides for three to six CU undergraduates each semester to spend four months either at a German or Portuguese university and participate in a program of courses in the area of "citizenship studies," which includes topics such as immigration, minority rights, citizen rights, citizen participation, multiculturalism, nationalism and other related issues.

The funding also allows for short-term graduate student and faculty research grants in either Germany or Portugal for projects in citizenship studies.

For more information on the grant and the exchange program, contact Mewes at mewesh@colorado.edu.

Colorado Springs professor chosen to review international grant program

Robert von Dassanowsky, professor of languages, cultures and visual and performing arts at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, recently was selected as the external reviewer of an Atlantis Program's Grant for Virginia Commonwealth University's transatlantic master's degree in foreign language and film studies.

Supported by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education and the European Commission's Directorate General for Education and Culture, the program provides grants for four to five years to add a European Union-United States dimension to international curriculum development and related student exchange.

He will attend the Atlantis Project Directors' conference Oct. 13-15 in Berlin.

Dropping names ...

Thea Lindquist, associate professor and associate faculty director for collection services at Norlin Library on the University of Colorado Boulder campus, was elected to the Center for Research Libraries/Global Resources Network's German-North American Resources Project (GNARP) Steering Committee as vice chair. The project makes connections between German and American libraries, librarians and collections. Lindquist presented one of only four papers from North America accepted into the Leipziger Kongress für Information und Bibliothek. Her paper is titled, "The Role of Information Literacy Instruction in the History Curriculum: Perspectives From the University of Colorado at Boulder." ... Laurie J. Sampsel, faculty director of the University of Colorado Boulder Howard B. Waltz Music Library, was awarded the Music Library Association's Vincent H. Duckles Award for best book-length bibliography or other research tool in music for her Music Research: A Handbook (Oxford University Press, 2009). The MLA described the handbook as a "carefully prepared, well-edited handbook (that) will be essential reading for music librarians, graduate students and music faculty for years to come."

Want to suggest a colleague — or yourself — for People? Please e-mail information to Jay.Dedrick@cu.edu