Accomplishments - October, 2026
Wasantha Jayawardene, associate professor of Public Health, School of Human Sciences, will receive the 2026 André G. Stanley Memorial Health Equity Award from the American Public Health Association (APHA) Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs (ATOD) section in November in San Antonio, Texas. The ATOD is the second-largest section within APHA. The award recognizes a person “who has demonstrated a commitment to health equity” in the ATOD field.
“SLEEPLESS NIGHT,” a solo exhibition of by Xuhong Shang, director and professor, School of Art and Design, is on view through Oct. 23, 2026, at Gallery 456, 456 Broadway, New York City. Centered around the single-channel video Sleepless Night, the exhibition explores “the unstable boundary between reality and dream, presence and absence, movement and confinement.” Shang uses installation, photographic fragments, painting, video sound and spatial intervention in creating “an environment where perception is interrupted and certainty becomes fragile.”
Works by Antonio J Martinez, professor of photography/intermedia arts in the College of Arts and Media, Kimiya Gheybparver, a first-year student in the Media Arts Master of Fine Arts program, and John Boucher, an undergraduate student in photography and studio art, are among the 31 artists whose photographs were chosen for the Shrode Art Center Photography Exhibition at the Cedarhurst Center for the Arts in Mount Vernon. There are 33 images selected for the exhibition, which runs through Jan. 10, 2027. The juried competition received 318 images from 75 artists representing 33 Southern Illinois communities.
Allison Joseph, professor in the School of Literature, Writing and Digital Humanities and director of the Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing, is the 2027 recipient of the Indiana University Creative Writing Alumni Award. She’s also been named the IU English Department’s George Edward Murphy Jr., and Janet Duey Murphy Visiting Scholar in English. She will deliver the department’s public Murphy Lecture as the keynote speaker on April 9, 2027. In announcing the award, the department noted Joseph’s “accomplishments as a poet, teacher, editor, publisher, and literary citizen have distinguished you nationally while giving us tremendous reason to be proud to call you one of our own.”
Father Joseph Brown, professor and director of the School of Africana and Multicultural Studies, has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 BCTS Thomas Wyatt Turner Award. Brown will receive the award Saturday, Oct. 10, at the University of Dayton. Presented by the Black Catholic Theological Symposium, the award is “presented to an individual whose work has benefited the Black Catholic community in the tradition established by Dr. Thomas Wyatt Turner, a staunch advocate for Black Catholic agency and fidelity to the Catholic Church.” Award recipients “exemplify these values through their commitment, leadership, and service to the Black Catholic community.”
