Killam honours for Faculty of Arts profs and students

The Faculty of Arts departments of Psychology and Anthropology and Archaeology made a strong showing this year at a prestigious annual reception held on November 20 to recognize the Killam Laureates of 2018.

Dr. Anne Katzenberg, PhD, a professor in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology was honoured as a Killam Annual Professor while Sheri Madigan, PhD (SSHRC), in Psychology, was awarded the 2018 Emerging Research Leader Award. The Emerging Research Leader Award winners of 2017 were also recognized at the ceremony, with two of those awards going to Dr. Amanda Melin, PhD (NSERC), also in Anthropology and Archaeology, and Dr. Thomas O’Neill, PhD (SSHRC), from Psychology.

The Killam Trusts were established by Dorothy J. Killam in honour of her late husband, Izaak Walton Killam, a prominent Canadian businessman. It is Canada’s largest private endowment and a vital source of support for advanced education and innovative research at five leading Canadian universities, including the University of Calgary.

The Killam Prize is one of Canada’s most prestigious honours for an academic. It is awarded to scholars who have made a substantial and significant contribution to their respective fields in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences or engineering.

With a research focus on paleonutrition and human adaptation to diet and disease in the past, Dr. Katzenberg has distinguished herself as a top academic in her field. She’s a member of the Royal Society of Canada, among her many distinguished accomplishments and she serves as a consultant of forensic anthropology for the Medical Examiner of Alberta. She also served as an associate vice president of research for the University of Calgary.

The Department of Psychology’s Dr. Madigan holds a Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Determinants of Child Development. Her research on the early social, emotional and cognitive development of children has been published in numerous prestigious journals. Moreover, she has reached a broad community with her prolific media engagement.

She has been featured monthly as the child development expert on CTV Live Morning News and her insights have been featured in such media outlets as the New York Times, Time Magazine, CNN, ABC’s Good Morning America, CBC and Today’s Parent, to name a few.

Dr. Melin, who studies primate behaviour and the dietary and sensory evolution of primates is a Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Primate Genomics and Dietary Ecology. She runs a genomics laboratory on Foothills Campus and conducts research as a member of the Cumming School of Medicine’s Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute (ACHRI).  She’s also co-director of a long-running field site in Sector Rosa, Área de Conservación Costa Rica, where she focuses on the sensory and feeding ecology of capuchin monkeys.

Dr. O’Neill has established himself as a leading academic in the field of industrial and organizational psychology. His research goal is focused on optimizing team effectiveness in the modern workplace, with its increasing reliance on electronic communication technologies to communicate, share information, solve problems and make decisions. His work also covers such areas as occupational safety and conflict management.

Those weren’t the only Killam honours that went out to the Faculty of Arts. Dr. Whitney Lackenbauer was also recognized as a 2017-2018 Killam Visiting Scholar in the Department of History.

As well, as number of Faculty of Arts students were awarded, with a first-year Killam Scholarship going to Samantha Francis Jones (Geography) and second year Killam Scholarships for Soohyun Ahn (Philosophy), Michelle Bianchi (Anthropology and Archaeology) and Benjamin Blyth (English).