Awards and Highlights

United Nations

The School of Medicine’s Rory Cooper was invited by the United Nations to speak at their AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, Switzerland. The esteemed Pitt innovator discussed how artificial intelligence (AI) is being deployed to fuel collaboration and improve the lives of people with disabilities, along with the challenges and ethical considerations of using AI in rehabilitation engineering. Cooper’s talk highlighted several pieces of technology developed in the Human Engineering Research Laboratories (HERL), a joint venture between Pitt and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Cooper is the founding director and VA Senior Research Career Scientist at HERL and serves as Pitt’s assistant vice chancellor for research for STEM-health sciences collaborations.

Rory Cooper

Faculty Named Fulbright Scholars

Three University of Pittsburgh faculty members received Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program Awards from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, professor in the School of Public and International Affairs and founding director of the Center for Governance and Markets, will serve as a distinguished scholar at Tel Aviv University in Israel, where she will study how formal agreements and informal networks shape regional cooperation in the Middle East, Central Eurasia and Eastern Europe.

Guillermo Calero Velazquez, associate professor in the School of Medicine’s Department of Structural Biology, will collaborate with scientists in Granada, Spain, on identifying small drug fragments that can inhibit the RAS oncogene, a protein involved in nearly 30% of human cancers. Using advanced X-ray crystallography, he creates detailed “molecular movies” of RAS’s activity cycle to help prevent uncontrolled cell growth.

Aleksandar Stevanovic, associate professor in the Swanson School of Engineering’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, will travel to Podgorica, Montenegro, to assist the city’s government and local university in designing and implementing an adaptive traffic signal control system. His project combines research, collaboration and teaching to optimize the system and train local professionals for its long-term maintenance.

National Awards and Highlights

Four Pitt faculty members earned a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, one of the foundation’s most prestigious in support of early career faculty. Winners not only serve as principal investigator on a project but also integrate an education aspect into their research. NSF selects recipients who are role models and can lead advances in their department and institutions.

Here are this year's recipients:

Jessica Anna, Professor, Department of Chemistry, Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

Na Du, Assistant Professor, Department of Informatics and Networked Systems, School of Computing and Information

Chengcheng Huang, Assistant Professor, Departments of Neuroscience and Mathematics, Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

Natasa Miskov-Zivanov, Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Swanson School of Engineering

Fernando Tormos-Aponte, assistant professor of sociology in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, won the Distinguished Early Career Award for Contributions to Social Movements Scholarship from the American Sociological Association (ASA). He was honored by ASA’s Collective Behavior and Social Movements section, which focuses on the study of emergent social forms and behaviors, including crowds, social movements, disasters, riots and fads.

Yuan Liu, assistant professor of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine in the School of Medicine, and Juan Taboas, associate professor of oral and craniofacial sciences in the School of Dental Medicine, have been elected senior members of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). NAI senior members have shown success in commercialization activities as well as exceptional creativity in developing technologies that benefit society.

Fang Peng, RK Mellon Endowed Chair Professor in the Swanson School of Engineering and director of the Energy GRID Institute, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He was recognized for “contributions to the development of high-power electronics technologies for advanced power grid control and energy conversion.”

University Awards and Honors

The Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Awards annually recognize outstanding scholarly accomplishments by members of the University of Pittsburgh faculty. The following are the 2025 recipients.

Senior Scholar Awardees

Piotr Hajłasz, professor of mathematics in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, was honored for his groundbreaking contributions to mathematics, including work on Sobolev (now Hajłasz-Sobolev) spaces, which have become fundamental in the analysis of metric geometry. Hajłasz’s peers praised his ability to “bridge abstract theoretical concepts with practical applicability” and described him as an inspiring mentor and a leader in mathematical analysis and geometric function theory.

Michael Madison, professor and John E. Murray Faculty Scholar in the School of Law, was recognized for the establishment of a framework for governing knowledge commons, work that has had a global impact on the field. Madison’s peers described him as “a preeminent scholar of knowledge commons,” an “interdisciplinary community builder” and a “visionary thinker” whose work has been highly influential in the field of intellectual property.

Rebecca Thurston, Pittsburgh Foundation Chair in Women’s Health and Dementia and professor in the Schools of Medicine and Public Health, was recognized for her research’s profound impact on public discourse and policy, transforming the understanding of menopause as a critical life stage affecting cardiovascular and brain health. Her peers described her as “among the most exceptional scholars in women’s health research” and “an international leader.”

Junior Scholar Awardees

Rachel Bezanson, associate professor of physics and astronomy in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, was honored for her innovative research, work to improve the excellence of the field of astronomy and strong leadership of multiple successful collaborations for observational research programs on the James Webb Space Telescope. Her peers described her as “one of the most promising young researchers in galaxy evolution” who is leading “one of the most critical extragalactic surveys in astronomy.”

Nev Jones, associate professor in the School of Social Work, was recognized for her past leadership of the Lived Experience Research Network and interdisciplinary research focused on changes in mental health policy and care delivery. Her peers called her work “paradigm shifting” and described her as “a highly regarded researcher and thought leader” who brings “creativity and intellectual rigor to research.”

Thomas Karikari, assistant professor of psychiatry in the School of Medicine, was recognized for his substantial contributions to research on Alzheimer’s disease and neurodegeneration. His peers described him as a “world authority on blood-based biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease” and a “uniquely talented leader and innovator.”

The Provost’s Award for Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring recognizes outstanding mentors who substantially impact students seeking research doctoral degrees. Each year, the provost’s office presents up to four awards, which include a $2,500 prize, to graduate faculty members responsible for training the next generation of researchers. The prize is in its 20th year.

This year’s awardees were as follows:

Heidi Donovan, professor, School of Nursing and School of Medicine

Burcu Savun, professor, Department of Political Science, Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

Vanitha Swaminathan, associate dean for research and strategic initiatives and Thomas Marshall Professor of Marketing, School of Business

David Vorp, senior associate dean for research and facilities and John A. Swanson Professor of Bioengineering, Swanson School of Engineering

Honorific Awards

256 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE FELLOWS

28 AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS & SCIENCES MEMBERS

234 FULBRIGHT GRANTEES

46 GUGGENHEIM FELLOWS

2 MACARTHUR FELLOWS

39 SLOAN FELLOWS

59 NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCES, ENGINEERING, AND MEDICINE MEMBERS

16 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF INVENTORS FELLOWS

9 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALISTS/WINNERS

118 NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION CAREER AWARDS

3 PRESIDENTIAL NATIONAL MEDALS OF SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

Honorific recognitions awarded to Pitt individuals throughout the history of the University.

This list includes all awards announced before the date of publication. Fulbright grantees count includes only faculty members and professors.

Source: Official websites of awarding organizations