10 Faculty Members Honored With Dean's Scholarly Achievement Awards
The following awards recognize individual accomplishment and reflect a richness and depth of scholarship and creative activity across the faculty:
Professor of Economics Erol Balkan and Margaret Thickstun, the Jane D. and Ellis E. Bradford ’45 Distinguished Writing Chair, both received the Career Achievement Award. Andrea Townsend (biology) was honored for Early Career Achievement. Notable Year Achievement awards went to Catherine Beck (geosciences), Mackenzie Cooley (history), Kelly Faig (psychology), Peter Guiden (biology), Robert Haberbusch (physical education), Ariel Kahrl (biology), and Katherine Kuharic (art).
Award descriptions and a list of previous recipients may be found on the Dean of Faculty site.
Career Achievement Award
“There are scholars who write about the world, and there are those who go into it — who refuse to let the distance between the archive and the abyss grow comfortable. Erol Balkan belongs emphatically to the second company,” a nominator wrote. “[Balkan’s] two most recent books — Refugees on the Move and the forthcoming Displaced and Dispossessed: Stories from the Border — speak together, urgently, and viscerally about one of the most consequential moral emergencies of our age: the mass displacement of human beings and the world’s ongoing failure to see them whole.”
A nominator said Balkan “has authored, co-authored, or co-edited eight monographs and over two dozen articles on a range of topics that showcase his intellectual breadth — from the development of capitalism in Turkey, to inequality and class reproduction, to the causes and consequences of displaced persons around the world. He is an internationally recognized expert on the economics of globalization and, in particular, Turkish economic and political development. He has been awarded national and international research grants including [an National Science Foundation (NSF)] award in 1995.”
This nominator added: “During Balkan’s nearly 40-year career at Hamilton, [he] has occupied an endowed chair … won two major teaching awards, mentored numerous Levitt Center summer research students, and been heavily involved in faculty governance. Perhaps most importantly [he] has been a champion for underrepresented populations in higher education and society. He was one of the founders and co-directors of the College’s Access Program, which offered low-income parents the opportunity to earn a BA. He also has been heavily involved on campus and in Utica in working on behalf of refugees, raising awareness and conducting research about the economic, political, and social issues facing refugees.”
Another colleague titled his nomination: “Two Books, One Witness: The Scholarly and Activist Vision of Erol Balkan.” That person noted, “Read together, these volumes constitute a sustained, deepening conversation with a single world-historical crisis. In his scholarship, photography, teaching, and fieldwork, Balkan has made the invisible visible and placed his name and presence alongside those whose cause he has championed. These two works stand as a fitting finale to Erol’s career and render him eminently worthy of recognition.”
A nominator wrote that over the course of Thickstun’s career, she “has produced two monographs, two edited collections, a major scholarly edition, and over 20 scholarly articles. [This body of work] has established her as one of the foremost voices in the study of 17th-century American and British literature. Her work on John Milton, Anne Bradstreet, and Quaker and Puritan women’s writing has fundamentally altered the trajectory of the field, bringing new perspectives and new authors to the forefront of study.
“[In her] first monograph, Fictions of the Feminine: Puritan Doctrine and the Representation of Women, [Thickstun is credited with opening up] ‘an appreciation of the cultural and theological richness and complexity of these texts,’ while simultaneously exposing the sexism of their doctrines.”
The nomination continues, “In 2019 she published a major new edition of Anne Bradstreet's works, Poems and Other Meditations, which … has quickly become the standard scholarly text. Similarly, her co-edited collection of Quaker women’s writing, Witness, Warning, and Prophecy: Quaker Women’s Writing 1655-1700 … has been praised as a ‘beautifully curated anthology.’”
Each spring for 17 years, Thickstun has organized a marathon reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost in Burke Library. “Most of us became interested in reading because of being read to,” observed Thickstun in a 2011 New York Times article. “These readings revive the notion that poetry is not a private, silent thing you do in a room with a piece of paper, but something you actually speak.”
The author of a 2008 New Yorker essay written in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of Milton’s birth called Thickstun’s 2007 book, Milton’s Paradise Lost: Moral Education, “My favorite of all the recent Milton books.”
A member of the faculty since 1988, Thickstun has been a member of every major College committee, served 10 years as department chair, faculty chair, director of the Writing Center, College marshal, and has held the Elizabeth McCormack Endowed Chair among other positions. She is currently the Jane D. and Ellis E. Bradford ’45 Distinguished Writing Chair.
Early Career Achievement
Townsend has published 55 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has been the first or last author on 35 of them. Thirty-six have been published since 2014, when she arrived at Hamilton, and 10 feature her Hamilton senior thesis students as lead authors or co-authors. Overall, more than 20 Hamilton students have contributed to her publications.
Townsend has also been awarded more than $550,000 in grants as a Hamilton faculty member, including two NSF Research Opportunity Awards and a third full NSF award, for which she serves as co-PI. One of her nominators has “seen firsthand the exceptional impact she has had on her department, her students, and her field.”
Townsend’s research program, said her nominator, “is both innovative and deeply impactful. Working at the intersection of disease ecology, behavioral ecology, and molecular ecology, she has developed a cohesive and forward-looking body of work that addresses how environmental challenges shape the health and behavior of wild animals.” Townsend received the Class of 1963 Excellence in Teaching Award in 2018, just four years after her arrival at Hamilton.
Beck co-authored a paper published in the journal Trends and Ecology and Evolution late last year. “Advancing ecology and evolution through continental scientific drilling” highlights how drilling sediment cores can inform our understanding of how ecosystems evolved through time. The paper is related to her work as a principal investigator for the Turkana Basin Drilling project (TARGET), in which she and fellow researchers are seeking to core the sedimentary record from 4 million years ago to the present — a depth of nearly two miles.
In addition, Beck was a co-author on six other publications in highly prestigious publications, including Nature; she submitted five grants and secured funding from three of them totaling approximately $115,000; and she was personally asked by a National Academy of Science colleague to deliver a conference talk on her behalf when the government shutdown prevented that colleague from attending, despite the two not being direct collaborators.
That says a lot, her nominator wrote, about how well she is regarded by leaders at the highest levels of her discipline. Beck has a $20 million NSF mid-scale infrastructure grant under review and previously was awarded an Early Achievement prize and the Class of 1963 Excellence in Teaching Award.
Cooley also has an Early Career Award and a teaching prize to her credit. In 2025, she published one co-edited volume; five peer-reviewed articles (one in a top journal in her field, and four alongside former or current Hamilton undergraduates and other faculty colleagues as part of a special journal issue she edited); and three book chapters, and one book review. A nominator said, “The sheer quantity of publications would be impressive even for a scholar at a top research university.”
Cooley was recognized in 2025 as a Dan David Prize Laureate, the most prestigious international award in the historical disciplines. The prize recognizes scholars whose work reshapes how we understand the human past and is awarded annually to a small cohort of early- and mid-career historians worldwide.
According to one of Cooley’s nominators, “[She] is the first winner of the prize to hail from a small liberal arts college. This award is on par, in terms of its size and prestige, with a Guggenheim or MacArthur ‘Genius’ Fellowship and should be recognized by the College.”
Faig had five papers and an encyclopedia entry published or in press in 2025, and is the first author on two of those papers. “Publishing that many papers in one year in her field is astonishing,” a nominator wrote, “especially since her participants have to come into the lab for physiological and behavioral measures.”
Last year, Faig published articles on loneliness in the journal Current Issues in Behavioral Science (“How Does Loneliness Impact Emotion Perception? A Systematic Review,” for which she was lead author). “Loneliness is Associated with Decreased Support and Increased Strain Given in Social Relationships,” for which Faig was a co-author, was published in Psychophysiology. She also contributed to “Loneliness is Not Associated with Attention Interference of Negative Social Information: Evidence from Four Studies,” published in PLOS One. The articles present results of her research with colleagues at Rutgers University, the University of Montana, and the University of Chicago.
Faig also submitted two National Institutes of Health grants as co-PI in 2025, and has five manuscripts in the latter stages of preparation. She presented three posters at three different conferences and was the senior author on one of those presentations.
Guiden was awarded an extremely competitive $500,000 NSF research award in 2025, evidence of his intellectual leadership and the high quality of his scholarship, Munemo said. “This award will support his ambitious research program for the next three years and provide tremendous, high-caliber research opportunities for Hamilton students.” Studying the glens of Hamilton alongside Associate Professor of Biology Andrea Townsend and Northern Illinois University’s Holly Jones, Guiden seeks to untangle the complex relationships between deer and rodents that could be shaping our forests.
Guiden published three manuscripts and is the first or last author on two of them. In addition, two of these publications featured Hamilton student co-authors. Last year he was also named an associate editor of the peer-reviewed British Ecological Society journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence. Guiden said the journal’s goal is to bring scientists and conservation practitioners together to find solutions to environmental problems.
Men’s Ice Hockey Coach
Munemo said Haberbusch’s work started in 2025 and ended in 2026 with the crowning of Hamilton’s men’s hockey team as the Division III national champion, noting that the coach was “recently named the best in the nation at what he does by several groups of voters. Actually, it’s more about what he teaches his students — or in this case, his student-athletes — to do.” Munemo said,“We know about the national championship, which was historic and spectacular, but I want to quote from a nominator since this recognition is about more than hockey:
‘Coach Haberbusch demonstrated exceptional leadership, strategic vision, and a commitment to holistic student-athlete development that resulted in one of the most significant seasons in the history of Hamilton College men’s ice hockey. [His] ability to cultivate a culture of accountability, resilience, and continuous improvement was evident throughout the season.
‘Beyond the on-ice accomplishments, Coach Haberbusch embodies [scholarship] and achievement through his intentional integration of academic priorities, leadership development, and character development education within his program,’ the nominator added. ‘His student-athletes are held to high standards in the classroom and in the community, reflecting his belief that success is measured not solely by wins and losses, but by the development of well-rounded individuals.’”
Kahrl earned this recognition for a year in which she published five contributions and is the prestigious first or last author on four of them. One of those features two of her Hamilton senior thesis students as co-authors. A nominator said, “Her invited book chapter [titled ‘Fertilization modes across animals’] in the Encyclopedia of Reproduction, for which she is the sole author, will further establish her reputation as a leader in her field, and she currently has another very exciting paper in review at one of the leading journals in the sciences.”
In April, Kahrl and collaborators from Trinity University published an article in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society titled “The evolution of testis architecture and sperm size in Anolis lizards.” Later in November, she published a book chapter on comparative fertilization modes and two co-authored papers in the journals Evolution and the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Finally, in December, she published work in the journal Integrative and Organismal Biology that began as a summer science research project led by Max Girard ’24.
Kahrl also presented her work at two professional conferences in 2025 and brought two of her Hamilton students to present their thesis work at one of these conferences. One of these students was selected to present in the Huey Award for Best Student Presentations for the Division of Ecology and Evolution, which is a testament to the high quality of Kahrl’s mentorship and research program at Hamilton, a nominator wrote.
Kuharic earned recognition for having her work included in Art Basel Paris and at Art Basel Hong Kong, both among the most prestigious art fairs in the world. In addition, her work was part of a group exhibition at the Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York City. As a result of being exhibited at Art Basel, Kuharic’s work was added to three prominent private collections. Already this year, her work is included in a group exhibition at the Fairfield University Art Museum accompanied by a published catalogue.
Kuharic is now a two-time recipient of this award, and she was recognized with a Career Achievement Award in 2022, evidence that she continues a remarkably productive career. She was also selected for the Class of 1963 Excellence in Teaching Award in 2009.
