Geography undergraduate Miller honored with Leadership Trust Award

Undergraduate student Ally Miller

Undergraduate geography major Ally Miller has received the Leadership Trust Award through the Letters & Science Honors Program.

The honor also provides funding to be used by the students to help plan, develop, and implement projects designed to improve the UW-Madison, the community, and/or the university student body.

In promoting healthy relationships with food and community, the Slow Food Friends project seeks to meet the needs of four interrelated organizations: Slow Food-UW, the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, Quaker Housing Inc for senior citizens and people with disabilities, and the South Madison Farmer’s Market. This campus-community partnership provides spaces for intergenerational and cross-cultural interaction while celebrating the many agricultural and environmental initiatives that exist within South Madison.

Category: Biological & Physical Sciences
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Washburn Observatory wins Civic Rehabilitation award

The Washburn Observatory

The newly renovated and restored Washburn Observatory won a Madison Trust for Historic Preservation 2010 Award in the category of Civic Rehabilitation.

The observatory, built 1878, was rehabilitated for modern office use and is now the home of the L&S Honors Program.  The telescope is used by the Department of Astronomy for public viewings.

The rehabilitation was made possible by San Orr of the Nancy Woodson Spire Foundation, and Steve Skolaski of the Oscar Rennebohm Foundation.  Their leadership and support brought new life to this iconic campus building.

• Madison Trust for Historic Preservation 2010 Awards (Wisconsin State Journal)
  

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L&S Honors Program hands out first distinguished faculty awards

L&S Distinguished Honors Faculty awardees (left to right): Janet Batzli, Cyrena Pondrom, Richard Begam, Robert Booth Fowler and Jenny Saffran.

The L&S Honors Program recently held a reception to honor several faculty members as Distinguished Honors Faculty nominated by students and staff for their contribution to teaching Honors courses and supervising honors students in research and scholarship.

This is the first time the program has offered such awards and they hope to continue in the future.

Congratulations to the following faculty for being named Distinguished Honors Faculty in 2010:

• Janet Batzli, Associate Faculty Associate, Biocore Program
• Cyrena Pondrom, Professor of English
• Richard Begam, Professor of English
• Robert Booth Fowler, Professor Emeritus of Political Science
• Jenny Saffran, Professor of Psychology
• Kenneth West, Professor of Economics

Category: College Updates
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L&S student wins $250,000 fellowship

Daniel Lecoanet, who will graduate with comprehensive honors from University of Wisconsin-Madison this spring with a double major in math and physics, has won a five-year, no-strings-attached fellowship to pursue graduate studies.

The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation in Livermore, Calif., has announced that Lecoanet was one of 15 winners in this year's competition, chosen from almost 600 applicants.

Lecoanet, who worked on the internal dynamics of stars at UW-Madison, says he intends to pursue theoretical physics in grad school.

"In theoretical physics, you have the opportunity to understand the essence of what's going on. There is this process of distilling a lot of experimental information into one clean idea," he says.

Valued at more than $250,000, Hertz Fellowships allow exceptional applied scientists and engineers the freedom to innovate.

"By supporting uniquely talented young leaders in the applied sciences and engineering to develop and explore their genius, the Hertz Foundation promotes innovative solutions to emerging challenges our nation and world face today," says foundation president Jay Davis.

Lecoanet grew up in Madison and attended James Madison Memorial High School.

Lecoanet is now sizing up graduate programs, but his first stop after Madison will be Cambridge, England, where he will study applied mathematics on a Churchill Scholarship.

He was one of only 14 Americans to receive the award, and the first UW-Madison student in 30 years.

(via University Communications: http://www.news.wisc.edu/17912)

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Monkey music research makes list in NYT Magazine Annual Ideas issue

Charles Snowdon, Hilldale Professor of Psychology and Director of the L&S Honors Program, recently collaborated with composer David Teie of the University of Maryland School of Music.

Their study showed that cotton-top tamarin monkeys were generally indifferent to human-based music, but showed emotional reactions to music that was composed in the frequency range and tempo of the tamarins' natural vocalizations.

However, the same features of music that calm humans — long pure notes with clear harmonic structure — also calmed monkeys and features that arouse humans (short staccato notes with noisy, discordant notes) also aroused tamarins.

Emotional features of human music may have a long evolutionary history.

The study was one of 45 recently included in the New York Times Magazine Annual Ideas issue.

Category: Social Sciences
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L&S student wins Churchill Scholar Award -- UW's first in 30 years

Daniel Lecoanet an honors student majoring in Physics and Mathematics and a student member of the Faculty Honors Committee and Honors Advisory Board has been named one of 14 Churchill Scholars from around the country.

Lecoanet is the first UW student to win this prestigious award in 30 years.

Lecoanet, originally from Madison, is one of only 14 Churchill Scholars from across the country, including five from public institutions.

He will spend the 2010-11 academic year at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, taking part in a renowned mathematical program that has produced great thinkers such as Sir Isaac Newton and William Thomson, Lord Kelvin.

Since 1963, the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States has awarded more than 430 Churchill Scholarships to American college graduates who have demonstrated extraordinary talent and outstanding achievement in the sciences, engineering, or mathematics.

The award is worth up to $50,000 and covers all tuition and fees, a living allowance and travel.

Congratulations to Daniel! 

For more information: http://www.news.wisc.edu/17663

• UW-Madison Churchill scholar is the only one surprised at award
• UW senior awarded Churchill Scholarship
  

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Awards, awards, awards!

‘Tis the season and L&S faculty and students are racking up the awards – congratulations to all!

• Phillips-Court wins publication award from Modern Language Association
• Foundation funds child well-being research of two faculty members
• Communication Arts professor to address William T. Grant Foundation
• Gruffat takes top awards in filmmaking 
• Lucas named NCA 'Distinguished Scholar'
• DeLamater receives Distinguished Service Award
• Dresang receives 'Champion Award' from Women's Philanthropy Council
• Sahai elected a Fellow of Mineralogical Society of America 
• Six honors undergrads receive Trewartha Senior Thesis grants
• History student receives Mark Mensink Honors Senior Thesis Research Award 
• Rodriguez receives 2009 Roberto G. Sánchez Award
• Computer Sciences team heads to world finals of programming competition

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