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Honors & Other Things |
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January 26, 2016, Volume 62, No. 20 |
Todd Gormley and Donald Keim: IRRCi Research Competition Winners
Katherine Milkman: Early Career Impact Award
Penn Transit: NIASE Certification
Virginia Reef: AAEP 2015 Distinguished Educator
Phyllis Solomon: High-impact Female Scholar
Barbara Ann Todd: AAN Fellow
Beth Winkelstein: 2016 ASME Van C. Mow Medal
Todd Gormley and Donald Keim: IRRCi Research Competition Winners
Two Wharton researchers co-authored a paper that won the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute (IRRCi) annual investor research competition. Todd A. Gormley, assistant professor of finance at the Wharton School, and Donald B. Keim, professor of finance and director of the Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research at the Wharton School, wrote the winning paper with Ian R. Appel, assistant professor of finance at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.
They were recognized in December 2015 at the Columbia Law School’s 2015 Millstein Governance Forum in New York City. Each winning research team received a $10,000 award.
The winning academic research, “Passive Investors, Not Passive Owners,” demonstrates that while passive investors—such as those that invest through index funds—are not active owners in the traditional sense of accumulating or selling shares so as to exert influence over managers and their choices, they are far from passive owners. Instead, the research finds that passively managed mutual funds, and the institutions that offer them, use their large voting blocs to exercise voice and exert influence on firms’ governance. The research finds that ownership by passively managed mutual funds is associated with significant governance changes such as more independent directors on corporate boards, removal of takeover defenses and more equal voting rights. These governance changes, in turn, are shown to improve firms’ long-term performance.
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Katherine Milkman: Early Career Impact Award
Katherine Milkman, an associate professor of operations, information and decisions at the Wharton School, was honored with the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences (FABBS) Foundation Early Career Impact Award during the annual meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making in November 2015 in Chicago, Illinois.
Dr. Milkman is recognized for her research on temptation bundling, in which a virtuous behavior, such as exercising, is paired with a vice, such as entertainment. In a study of college students who wanted to exercise more, she found that students who could only unlock a tempting audio novel while they exercised did so more often than those who simply received gift certificates to Barnes & Noble. According to Dr. Milkman, other applications of temptation bundling might include “pairing your favorite burger restaurant with spending time with a difficult relative, or saving a great podcast for household chores.”
She has also researched the fresh start effect, finding that people are more likely to make behavioral changes during “landmark times that mark a new beginning,” such as birthdays, holidays, or the start of a new year, week, month or season.
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Penn Transit: NIASE Certification
All Penn Transit vehicle maintenance technicians have attained certification from the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (NIASE), a nonprofit organization that serves to improve the quality of vehicle repair and service by testing and certifying automotive professionals. These technicians have been certified in areas such as engine repair, electrical systems, brakes, tire repair and rotation as well as preventive maintenance and inspection. Each area of service is led by at least one ASE Certified Technician, an indicator of Penn Transit’s commitment to excellence. Penn Transit Maintenance has also earned the Blue Seal of Excellence from NIASE. It is the only vehicle repair facility in West Philadelphia to earn this distinction.
In addition to maintaining Penn Transit’s fleet of vehicles, these skilled technicians also service many other vehicles used by departments around campus.
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Virginia Reef: AAEP 2015 Distinguished Educator
Virginia Reef, director of large animal cardiology and diagnostic ultrasonography at Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine, received the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) 2015 Distinguished Educator—Academic Award. Dr. Reef was honored last December during the President’s Luncheon at the AAEP’s 61st Annual Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Dr. Reef is also the Mark Whittier and Lila Griswold Allam Professor of Medicine and section chief of sports medicine and imaging at Penn Vet’s New Bolton Center. A pioneer in the diagnostic use of ultrasonographic technology, she perfected the technology in her clinical use and then set out to teach the technology to students and practitioners alike. In the ensuing 30-plus years, ultrasonography has contributed to early diagnosis of musculoskeletal injury in the horse, significantly reducing catastrophic athletic-use tendon and ligament injuries.
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Phyllis Solomon: High-impact Female Scholar
An academic paper published last year ranked School of Social Policy & Practice Professor Phyllis Solomon among the top most cited female academics in social work. Authors of the paper, entitled “Citation Impact of Women in Social Work: Exploring Gender and Research Culture” and published in the journal Research on Social Work Practice, set out to identify the high-impact female scholars in top-ranked schools of social work.
Dr. Solomon, internationally known for her research on clinical services and mental illness, came in at number 10 on an impressive list of 25 female scholars. Data analysis factored in the number of papers each scholar published, the number of times they’ve been cited, and qualitative interviews with graduates from top-ranked schools.
Last year, Dr. Solomon joined the 2015 Class of Fellows of the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR). Most recently, she was invited to deliver the Annual Sidney Ball Memorial Lecture last October at Oxford University. She spoke on anti-deinstitutionalization and anti-institutionalization for persons with severe mental illnesses.
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Barbara Ann Todd: AAN Fellow
Barbara Ann Todd, director of advanced practice in the department of nursing and director of the Graduate Nurse Education Demonstration project at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN).
As director of the Graduate Nurse Education Demonstration project, Dr. Todd oversees a five-year, $200 million Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) funded initiative designed to develop new models of clinical training for advanced practice nurses. She completed her doctorate of nursing practice at Thomas Jefferson University School of Nursing in 2010.
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Beth Winkelstein: 2016 ASME Van C. Mow Medal
Beth Winkelstein, Penn’s vice provost for education and professor in the department of bioengineering, is the recipient of the 2016 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Van C. Mow Medal. This honor “is bestowed upon an individual who has demonstrated meritorious contributions to the field of bioengineering through research, education, professional development, leadership in the development of the profession, mentorship to young bioengineers and with service to the bioengineering community.”
Dr. Winkelstein’s research focuses on the mechanisms of injury, pain and mechanotransduction—especially injuries from sports, automobile accidents, or degenerative diseases that produce persistent pain in the neck, spine and other joints. Her work is supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense, among many others, including a CAREER Award from the NSF. The author of Orthopaedic Biomechanics (2012) and more than a hundred papers and book chapters, she serves as editor of the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering and is a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, which awarded her its Y.C. Fung Young Investigator Award in 2006. She mentors graduate and undergraduate students in her lab and is the faculty adviser to Penn’s Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES).
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Almanac -
January 26, 2016, Volume 62, No. 20
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