Past Recipients

2021 Recipients

Myrna García

Assistant Professor of Instruction in Latina and Latino Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Myrna García is recognized for her enormous impact improving the climate for students through her many roles on campus, including Weinberg College advisor, faculty chair for the Residential College of Cultural and Community Studies and faculty advisor for La Alianza Latinx, an undergraduate student organization. Through her work founding a diversity, equity and inclusion committee for Weinberg College advisors to her collaboration with many offices and staff across campus, García is a deeply committed champion of equity and inclusion.

Roberto López-Rosado, Tobey DeMott Yeates, Ana Maria Acosta, Heather Henderson

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, Department of Physical Therapy & Human Movement Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine

Roberto López-Rosado (Assistant Professor), Tobey DeMott Yeates (Assistant Professor), Ana Maria Acosta (Associate Professor), and Heather Henderson (Assistant Professor) are recognized for their initiative to facilitate difficult conversations and develop a comprehensive, ongoing effort to create a more inclusive department. Their strategic planning has had an impressive impact on admissions recruiting, high school outreach and curriculum changes. They serve as a model for effective positive change within a unit.

2020 Recipients

Patricia Loew

Professor of Journalism, Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications

Patricia Loew is recognized for her outstanding and creative Indigenous Tour of Northwestern, which elevates Native history and presence across our campus and community, the creation of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Minor, and for her leadership at the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research.

Karen Smilowitz

Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science

Karen Smilowitz is recognized for her long record of consistent work in both formal and informal roles moving McCormick, and Northwestern, towards greater diversity and inclusion. She demonstrates her excellence in her sustained leadership and commitment to incorporating the values of diversity and inclusion throughout the school and University.

2019 Recipients

Galen Bodenhausen

Professor, Psychology, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Galen Bodenhausen, Professor, Psychology, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences in the Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, is recognized for his broad and sustained leadership increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Psychology Department, most notably as founder of Sneak Peek, which brings undergraduate students from underrepresented groups to Northwestern to learn about graduate school, co-founder of the Center for Science Diversity, and founder of a program to distribute a common reading and subsequent discussion within the department on economic inequality.

Marcelo Worsley

Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, McCormick School of Engineering and School of Education and Social Policy

Marcelo Worsley, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the McCormick School of Engineering and Assistant Professor in the School of Education and Social Policy, is recognized for his innovative teaching and for the Technological Innovations for Inclusive Learning and Teaching (TIILT) Lab, which includes all, regardless of physical ability, in STEM technology, as well as his outreach efforts to increase access to and interest in STEM in Evanston.

2018 Recipients

Lane Fenrich

Distinguished Senior Lecturer, Gender & Sexuality Studies and Assistant Dean for Freshmen, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Lane Fenrich, Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Gender & Sexuality Studies and Assistant Dean for Freshmen in the Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, is recognized for his outstanding and ongoing work with Weinberg’s summer BRIDGE program. This free summer program prepares incoming students and rising sophomores for success in rigorous quantitative disciplines. The BRIDGE program specifically targets students who attended high schools with limited or no AP preparation or who are among the first in their family to attend college. His successful efforts with the BRIDGE program have helped numerous first-generation and low-income students increase their persistence in STEM majors and create connections among faculty, campus resources, and other students throughout the Northwestern community.

Nitasha Sharma

Associate Professor, African American Studies, Asian American Studies, and Performance Studies, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Nitasha Sharma, Associate Professor of African American Studies, Asian American Studies, and Performance Studies in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is recognized for her dedication and work in creating interdisciplinary courses specifically focused on issues of inequality, racism and diversity, increasing resources for marginalized students on campus and serving as a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship mentor and faculty advisor for Northwestern’s Mixed Race Student Coalition.

2017 Recipients

Loren Ghiglione

Professor, Journalism, Medill

Loren Ghiglione, professor in the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, is recognized for his outstanding and ongoing work to illuminate and support the Native American population on campus. That includes his leadership of the 2015-16 One Book One Northwestern steering group and the 2016-17 Native American and Indigenous Peoples Steering Group, his successful efforts to recruit Native American faculty and his engagement of these issues with undergraduate students.

E. Patrick Johnson

Chair of African American Studies, WCAS, and Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies, School of Communication

E. Patrick Johnson, chair of African-American Studies in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies in the School of Communication, is recognized for his tireless work in building an interdisciplinary research, practice and community-focused Black Arts Initiative at Northwestern.