More than two dozen students and faculty members were recognized by the Department of Urban Studies and Planning with departmental and Institute-wide awards for their accomplishments in the field in 1997-98.
The American Institute of Certified Planners' Outstanding Student Award was presented to graduate student Susan Silberberg of Cambridge. The award for Outstanding Contribution to the Intellectual Life of the Department went to graduate student Anne Beamish of Boston. Graduate students Heather Hillman of Bryn Mawr, PA, and Laura London of Bethesda, MD, received Departmental Service Awards. Honorable mentions went to graduate students Joyce Coffee of Boulder, CO, Kelly Davenport of Somerville, Shawn Escoffery of Ft. Lee, NJ, Anthony Ng of Brooklyn, NY, Otis Rolley III of Jersey City, NJ, and Julie Wagner of Waterbury Center, VT.
Ms. Silberberg and Andrew Weaver of Cambridge won awards for Outstanding MCP Thesis, while Margaret Super of Cambridge won the Wallace Floyd Award for City Design.
Administrative Staff Assistant Janice O'Brien, and department coordinator Marsha Orent were recognized for Outstanding Professional Service by Support Staff. Honorable mention went to senior office assistant Sue Delaney.
Institute-wide award winners included Visiting Professor Naomi Car-mon, who won the Aaron Wildavsky Book Award. Professors Dennis Frenchman and Jan Wampler won the Irwin Sizer Award, and former graduate student Cherie Abbanat won the Kristen Finnegan Prize.
Shawn Escoffery won a number of awards including the Black Graduate Student Association's award for Outstanding Service to the Black Community, the Edward L. Horton Fellowship Award, La Union Chicana por Aztlan's Outstanding Service Award and the Office of Minority Education (OME) Outstanding Service Award. The OME also gave a Distinguished Service Award to graduate student Gilbert Contreras of Norwalk, CA, and senior Richard Rosalez of Paulding, OH, was named a Class of 1938 Scholar, an I. Austin Kelly III Essay Competition winner, and recipient of the OME's Certificate of Academic Excellence.
Mr. Contreras, Mr. Escoffery and Mr. Rosalez were presented with Multicultural Community Service Awards by the Office of Dean of Students for Undergraduate Education.
Eric Plosky, a junior from Syosset, NY, and Peter Siu, a junior from North York, Ontario, Canada, were named Burchard Scholars, while Julie Wagner won the Carroll Wilson Award.
Scholarship and fellowship winners included graduate students Kristin Little of Auburn, CA (a Horacio Caminos Memorial Fund Scholarship), Michael Fischer of Superior, WI (a Hugh Hampton Young Fellowship), entering PhD student Jill Blockhus (an Ida M. Green Fellowship), Aya Okada of Aichi, Japan (an Industrial Performance Center doctoral research fellowship), and Sumila Gulyani of New Delhi, India (an International Motor Vehicle Program Research Grant). Isela Rodriguez, a junior from Euless, TX, won a List Foundation Fellowship.
The National Congress for Community Economic Development's Emerging Leader Award went to Mr. Ng. Graduate student Brett Ballard of Cambridge won an award from the Mellon-MIT Program on Forced Migration and NGOs.
Among this year's awards to faculty members are the Chester Rapkin Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), presented to Professor Lawrence Vale; the ACSP's Distinguished Planning Educator Award to Professor Lloyd Rodwin; and the Heinz Family Foundation Award to Martin Luther King Visiting Professor Ernesto Cortes Jr.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on June 3, 1998.
