University Awards and Honors

  • Other Awards, Offices and Honors
  • Faculty Promotions

    • Distinguished Faculty Awards


    The Distinguished Faculty Awards have existed at Michigan State University since 1952. They have been presented annually at the convocation in early February when the University President presents the "State of the University" address. In the early days the awardee was selected by President John A. Hannah and the number of recipients for the first several years was one or two. In the early '60s the number receiving these prestigious awards was increased to six (still selected by President Hannah from a list of twelve recommended by a University committee from the nominations of individuals, departments and colleges). The number awarded by the University each year is now ten. In 2007, the     Distinguished Faculty Awards included Jack Baldwin. Professor Baldwin came to our department in January, 2000. He is codirector of the Center for the Study of Cosmic Evolution of which the SOAR telescope is key. Baldwin was essential to the successful completion of that telescope. In 2008 Simon Billinge was among those who were so honored.
    Previous years' Distinguished Faculty Awards

    University Distinguished Professors


    On June 15, 2007 the Board of Trustees approved the title of     University Distinguished Professor for two of our faculty members, Tim Beers and Wolfgang Bauer. They are the latest recipients in our department to receive this distinguished designation. Tim Beers is an astronomer/astrophysicist whose research is on the oldest stars in the universe. He is instrumental in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics and with MSU's participation in the Soar Telescope. Wolfgang Bauer is a nuclear physicist with other research activities in astrophysics, medical physics and physics education, in particular the LON-CAPA project. The well-deserved honor of University Distinguished Professorships reflects their overall contributions to the department, the college and the university, and is a high point of their very distinguished careers. We are proud of them! The designation of University Distinguished Professor (UDP) was only given to a total of 10 MSU faculty members, bringing the total number to 104 across the University. Tim Beers and Wolfgang Bauer join Brad Sherrill, Gary Westfall, Sam Austin (Emeritus), Walter Benenson (Emeritus), Henry Blosser (Emeritus), Konrad Gelbke, Edwin Kashy (Emeritus), and Michael Thorpe (Emeritus) in the UDP ranks, making ours the most successful department on campus in this respect.
    The years when previous UDPs were awarded to Physics-Astronomy faculty

    John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor

    Upon his retirement from the University Presidency, John Hannah was honored by the Board of Trustees with the establishment of the John A. Hannah endowed Professorships. Currently there are six faculty in the University who have these endowed chairs. The most recent Hannah Professor in the University is Wolfgang Mittig who also has a joint appointment at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and the Physics and Astronomy Department. He came to MSU from GANIL in France. The late Professor P. Gregers Hansen, who had a joint appointment at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and the Physics and Astronomy Department, was a Hannah Professor since 1995 until his passing. In past years David Scott and George Bertsch, also then at the NSCL and P-A Department, were Hannah Professors.

    Faculty Promotions, 2008

    There were three faculty promotions to the rank of Professor in 2008: Megan Donahue, Scott Pratt and Mark Voit. Also, Kirsten Tollefson was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor.
    Megan Donahue has  been at MSU since 2003.  She received her Ph.D. in 1990 from the University of Colorado. Before coming to MSU she was at the Space Telescope Science Institute. Her research includes studies of cluster galaxies and the physics of the intergalactic gas in the cores of clusters, cosmology, dark matter and dark energy constraints as determined from clusters using X-ray, optical and near-infrared observations. For her observations she makes use of the Hubble Telescope, Chandra and XMM X-ray Observatory.
    Scott Pratt came to MSU from the University of Wisconsin in 1995 as an Assistant Professor. Pratt is a theoretical physicist whose research is in various aspects of the dynamics of heavy-ion collisions.
    G. Mark Voit also came to MSU from the Space Telescope Science Institute in 2003. His research involves the theoretical framework for precision cosmology using observations from cluster galaxies, galaxy formation by supernova and X-ray studies of the physics of hot gas in galaxy clusters.
    Kirsten Tollefson received her Ph.D. from the University of Rochester and came to MSU from there in 2002. Her research has been centered at Fermilab with the CDF experiments and the study of top quark physics, most recently measuring properties of the top quark such as its electric charge and interactions involving the top.

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