Two CALS faculty members receive Hilldale Awards
Daniel Gianola, professor of animal sciences, and Jane Collins, professor of community and environmental sociology, are among four UW-Madison faculty members to receive Hilldale Awards, which honor contributions to teaching, research and service each year.
One award is given for each of the UW-Madison’s four divisions: physical sciences, social studies, arts and humanities, and biological sciences. The awards are an annual recognition dating back to 1987, and the winners will receive a $7,500 prize.
In the 1980s, Dan Gianola was recognized as the world’s authority on using statistical methods to link genetic traits in animals to important characteristics like fertility, disease resistance and survival. Today, he is credited with introducing and promoting the use of unique statistical approaches in animal breeding and quantitative genetics.
Dan “is often named among the recognized pioneers and leaders of the science of animal breeding,” writes animal sciences Professor and Chair Dan Schaefer, who nominated Gianola for the award.
Gianola holds honorary degrees from six academic institutions and has been a visiting professor in 13 countries. He has published more than 280 peer-reviewed papers, three books, trained more than 90 graduate students and post-doctoral researchers and won numerous national and international awards.
Contributions he made to the field of theoretical genetics 25 years ago have had a profound impact on the field over the last decade, and his work has touched several areas of genetics.
“He helped solve problems in statistical genetics once thought to be unsolvable,” Schaefer writes.
“Jane Collins is a gifted and creative thinker, and an innovative, highly productive, internationally recognized scholar,” write community and environmental sociology Chair Jess Gilbert and gender and women’s studies Chair Judith Houck in their joint nomination letter.
Throughout her career — which includes more than two decades at UW-Madison — the economic and cultural sociologist has made substantial contributions to our understanding of labor processes and globalization, labor and global commodity chains, shifting frameworks for assessing economic value and global cultural studies, focusing primarily on women’s work. It’s taken her from arid agricultural fields in Brazil to coffee farms on the eastern slopes of the Andes to apparel factories in Mexico and the U.S. and to neighborhoods in Milwaukee and Racine.
Collins offers a popular graduate seminar that has inspired more than two dozen dissertations. She has mentored 22 graduate students and served on more than 100 thesis committees across 20 university departments. In addition, Collins has served on innumerable university and professional committees.
Read about the other 2015 Hilldale Award winners here.