Four highly promising professors in diverse fields have been awarded the Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prizes for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement by Young Faculty.

They are Jason D. Lieb, an associate professor of biology; Milada A. Vachudova, an associate professor of political science; and Joshua M. Knobe, an assistant professor of philosophy – all in the College of Arts and Sciences – along with Blossom A. Damania, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology and a member of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, School of Medicine.

The Hettleman Prize, which carries a $5,000 stipend, recognizes the achievements of outstanding junior tenure-track faculty or recently tenured faculty. The award was established in 1986 by Phillip Hettleman, who was born in 1899 and grew up in Goldsboro in a family with very little money. He earned a scholarship to UNC, went to New York and in 1938 founded Hettleman & Co., a Wall Street investment firm.

Knobe and Vachudova will present their work Feb. 18, and Damania and Lieb will present theirs April 8, all from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at the Carolina Club in the George Watts Hill Alumni Center.

Lieb
During his six years at Carolina, Lieb has achieved international status for research investigating the accessibility of information encoded in a genomic DNA sequence and how that accessibility affects gene expression, said Terry Magnuson, chair of the genetics department and director of the Carolina Center for Genome Sciences.

From the beginning of his career, Lieb has studied the way DNA packaging, or chromatin, affects how genes are regulated on a genomic scale, Magnuson said. Lieb, whose work is an integral part of the genome sciences center, explores the relationship among chromatin, transcription factor targeting and gene expression.

Magnuson said that Lieb has been one of the most active members in Carolina’s genome initiative. One of his most significant contributions has been his involvement in the planning and design of the new Genome Sciences Research and Teaching building.

Vachudova
Vachudova, who joined the faculty in 2001, wrote “Europe Undivided,” which examines determinants of the quality of emerging democratic institutions in states that are making the transition away from authoritarianism and ethnic conflict. The 2005 work also explores how international actors influence this process.

Her book won two major book awards, the International Social Science Council's Stein Rokkan Prize for the best work in comparative social science by a scholar under the age of 40, and the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies' Marshall Shulman Book Prize for the best book in international relations of the states of the former Soviet Union or Eastern Europe. She conducted more than 150 interviews for the book, in Czech, Slovak, Polish, French and English, in six eastern European countries.

David Cameron, professor of political science and director of the Yale Program in European Union Studies, said Vachudova’s scholarship is distinguished by her analytical focus on the relationship between the European Union and the domestic politics of central and eastern European countries.

Damania
Damania is a premier faculty member and the archetype of the junior faculty the University hopes to nurture and retain, said H. Shelton Earp, distinguished professor of medicine and director of the Lineberger Center, and Ron Swanstrom, acting chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.

“Her study of viral pathogenesis at all levels – the molecular, the cellular and the infectious – are models for future approaches to diseases of worldwide import,” they said in their nominating letter.

Damania’s breadth of training, they added, has served her well as she “launched a successful academic career spanning the juncture between cancer research and infectious diseases.”

In her time at UNC, Damania has published 30 papers in top-notch journals and become a magnet for graduate students, including the four currently in her lab. Also, she obtained the highly competitive Burroughs Wellcome Foundation Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award that gave her an additional $400,000 for her research.

Knobe
Knobe, who joined the faculty in 2006 directly from graduate school, was featured in a recent cover story in the Chronicle of Higher Education in which he was described as having “rocked the philosophical establishment” and earned “a place at the leading edge of the discipline.”

He is credited with being the major force behind – and most impressive practitioner of – experimental philosophy, which applies experimental techniques to philosophy’s traditional conceptual problems.

Knobe already has 29 published articles and an edited volume. Moreover, his publications have drawn commentary from a number of important philosophers and action theorists, including two articles by Alfred Mele, arguably the world’s foremost living action theorist.

“In sum, Joshua Knobe is a remarkable philosopher,” said Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, chair of the philosophy department. “He has produced more, and been cited more, than anyone we have known at his career stage.”

He added, “Knobe has a unique voice in philosophy that has reshaped the philosophical terrain.”