Six Illinois professors named Guggenheim Fellows

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Six professors at the University of Illinois have been named 2016 Guggenheim Fellows, bringing to 13 the number of U. of I. faculty members who have been honored with the fellowship over the last three years.

This year’s fellows are Dennis Baron, Karin A. Dahmen, Craig Koslofsky, Mei-Po Kwan, Ralph W. Mathisen and Rebecca Stumpf.

They are among 178 artists, scholars and scientists from the U.S. and Canada selected “on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise,” according to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, in a press release. The fellows were chosen from a pool of nearly 3,000 applicants.

Baron is a professor of English and linguistics at Illinois. His research interests include language legislation, policy and reform; linguistic rights; the history of English usage; and language and gender. He is the author of seven books, and he has consulted on a number of legal cases. Baron wrote an amicus brief for the Supreme Court case District of Columbia, et al., v. Dick Anthony Heller, concerning the linguistics of the Second Amendment. He’ll use his fellowship to complete an eighth book, “Guns and Grammar: Understanding Language Law.” Baron earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Dahmen, a professor of physics, has wide-ranging interests in condensed matter physics and statistical physics, involving nonequilibrium dynamical systems, hysteresis, avalanches, earthquakes, population biology and disorder-induced critical behavior. She also is interested in other aspects of condensed matter physics and mathematical physics, and in areas of biophysics and geophysics, where methods of condensed matter physics can be fruitfully applied. Dahmen earned her Ph.D. from Cornell University. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society.

Koslofsky, a professor of history and Germanic languages and literatures, specializes in early modern European and global history. His 2011 book, “Evening’s Empire,” explored how people lived at night and changing attitudes toward the night in early modern Europe, and an earlier book examined death and ritual in early modern Germany. His fellowship will support current research on skin in the early modern world (circa 1450-1750), in which he explores tattooing, cosmetics, branding, medicine, skin color and race. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Kwan, a professor of geography and geographic information, has made contributions to the discipline of geography in areas spanning health, social, transportation and environmental issues in cities through the application of innovative geographic information system methods. Her interests include environmental health, human mobility, access to health care, neighborhood effects, sustainable travel and cities, and the application of geographic information system methods in geographic research. Kwan earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has received the Distinguished Scholarship Honors from the Association of American Geographers.

Mathisen is a professor of history, classics and medieval studies, whose research has focused on the later centuries of the Roman Empire and the transition to what followed, otherwise known as late antiquity. He is a founding member and past president of the Society for Late Antiquity. His fellowship will support research challenging a common “rise and fall,” barbarians-versus-civilization narrative about the end of the western Roman Empire – instead showing that the barbarians were not hostile outsiders, but rather an integral part of the Roman world. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Stumpf is a professor of anthropology whose research focuses on comparative primate behavior, physiology and microbiomes to explain patterns of variation across the Primate Order (including humans) and attain a greater understanding of primate behavioral ecology, reproductive biology, conservation and health. She has faculty appointments in the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology; the Center for African Studies; the Program in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation; and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. Stumpf obtained her Ph.D. from Stony Brook University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in 2004.

Since its establishment in 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has granted more than $334 million in fellowships to over 18,000 individuals, many of whom have also received Nobel prizes, Pulitzer prizes, Fields medals and other internationally recognized honors.