Kudos is an occasional column that recognizes Dartmouth faculty, students, and staff who have received awards or other honors. Did you or a colleague recently receive an award or honor? Please tell us about it: dartmouth.news@dartmouth.edu.
George O’Toole, the Elmer R. Pfefferkorn PhD Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Geisel School of Medicine, has received the 2025 American Society for Microbiology Award for Graduate Education.
Established in 1899, the American Society for Microbiology is one of the oldest and largest professional societies dedicated to the life sciences.
The Department of Religion has awarded the Sperry Writing Prize in Religion, which includes a cash prize, to six students for outstanding essays or research papers written in any course offered by the religion department. This year’s winners are:
- Kevin Guo ’26 for the paper The Buddhist Way of Practice, written in the class Buddhism, Sexuality, & Gender in Southeast Asia
- Stella Larson ’26 for the paper Renovation and Revitalization of Imperial Rome through Santa Maria Antiqua, written in the class Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Age of the Crusades
- Guanming Liang ’25 and Ashley Wang ’25 for the paper Bridging Worlds: W. E. B. Du Bois and Lu Xun On Rebuilding Nations and Cultures, written in the class African American Religion and Culture in Jim Crow America
- Emma Ratchford ’25 for the paper The Sound of Identity: Exploring the Continuity of West African Musical Traditions in Haitian Vodou Songs and Rhythms, written in the class African Religions of the Americas
- Heyi Zhang ’27 for a collection of four ethnographic essays written for the class Ethnography and Religion
Elizabeth Cascio, the DeWalt H. 1921 and Marie H. Ankeny Professor in Economic Policy, has been elected to the 2025 executive committee of the American Economic Association. Established in 1885, the AEA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, scholarly association dedicated to the discussion and publication of economics research.
Nine medical students from Geisel School of Medicine are among 26 new Schweitzer Fellows from New Hampshire and Vermont. Working under the guidance of their community or academic mentor, fellows collaborate with either community-based health or social service organizations to develop and implement yearlong projects to address the root causes of health disparities in under-resourced communities throughout the region.
Geisel’s 2024-2025 Schweitzer Fellows and their service projects and community partners are:
Riley Carbone ’18, MED ’27, and Jennifer Shah, MED ’27, are partnering with the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center Moms in Recovery Program to improve the childcare and nutrition education services offered by the program.
Erikson Nichols, MED ’27, and Alexander Walkon, MED ’27, are developing an adaptive sports and fitness program for adults with developmental disabilities in a collaborative partnership between Dartmouth Athletics, the Geisel School of Medicine Disability Advocacy Group, and Visions for Creative Housing.
Isabella Marchal, MED ’27, and Corbin Dameron, MED ’27, are partnering with the Dartmouth Cancer Center Food Pantry during its period of expansion into a larger, dedicated space within DHMC.
Alyssa Fayerman, MED ’27, aims to improve the support available to peripartum women and new families in the Upper Valley by improving the delivery of educational materials and increasing successful connections to community resources for pregnant and parenting people.
Neelima Paleti, MED ’27, and Pranav Prabhala, MED ’27, are partnering with the Upper Valley Haven and Moms in Recovery program to address the challenges of food insecurity and limited access to nutritious foods faced by mothers recovering from substance use disorders.
Vinald Francis, a biomedical illustrator at Geisel School of Medicine, gave two talks this summer on graphic medicine at the International Graphic Medicine Conference in Athlone, Ireland. Graphic medicine, the intersection between comics and healthcare, is increasingly used in medicine to communicate complex information in a concise manner.
“It was an exciting conference, and I was honored to represent Dartmouth in the burgeoning field of graphic medicine,” Francis says. His presentation also included a collaboration with Shontay Delalue, MED ’24, senior vice president and senior diversity officer at Dartmouth. In addition to her administrative role, Delalue teaches in Geisel’s Master of Public Health residential program and received her master’s degree in public health from Geisel’s hybrid program this past spring.
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Lydia Jennings—a soil scientist and trail runner who ran 50 miles in the Sonoran Desert, among other activities, to honor 50 Indigenous scientists and knowledge keepers who came before her—was selected as an Environmental Sports Champion by the Lewis Pugh Foundation.
The Pugh Foundation gives the environmental sports champion award to people who push boundaries, and transcend them, in an effort to bring people together around the common issues that threaten the planet.
The Friends of Dartmouth Cancer Center have been given the 2024 Champion for Cures Award from the Association of American Cancer Institutes. The award recognizes philanthropists who have made significant contributions to advancing cancer research, prevention, and patient care through innovative fundraising and community engagement efforts.
Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Ingrid Brioso Rieumont has been awarded first honorable mention for best dissertation by the Caribbean Studies Association. Brioso Rieumont is currently adapting the dissertation for her first book, The Edges of Slavery: Pre-birth and the Postmortem in 19th-Century Cuba and Brazil. The book draws from 19th-century Latin American texts by Cirilo Villaverde, Machado de Assis, and lesser-known writers like Afro-Cuban Martín Morúa Delgado, examining the prenatal and postmortem stages of enslaved individuals.
