Ana C. Antunes

Assistant Professor, Gender Studies

Bennion Center Public Service Professor Award

The Bennion Center Public Service Award is designed to help a faculty member strengthen community-engaged learning experiences and foster stronger partnerships with the local community. Dr. Ana Antunes was selected as the winner of the 2022 award for her demonstrated sustained commitment to community engaged pedagogy centered on gender and sexuality education for youth in our west-side communities. She will use the award to launch a program in partnership with the Sunnyvale Neighborhood Center focused “on using digital technology as a means to enhance access to medically accurate knowledge about gender and sexuality, critical media literacy skills, and public health information.” Dr. Antunes has established a strong, long-term relationship with this community partner and has also partnered with the School of Medicine to build curriculum for the program.

Lisa Diamond

Distinguished Professor, Gender Studies and Psychology

University of Utah Distinguished Professor Award

The rank of Distinguished Professor is reserved for selected individuals whose achievements exemplify the highest goals of scholarship as demonstrated by recognition accorded to them from peers with national and international stature, and whose record includes evidence of a high dedication to teaching as demonstrated by recognition accorded to them by students and/or colleagues.

Dr. Diamond was selected as one of the 2022 recipients of this high honor.

Dr. Diamond’s research focuses on the development and expression of sexual and gender diversity over the life course, and on the biological mechanisms through which sexual and gender stigma influence physical and mental health. Her upper-level undergraduate and graduate students consistently comment that Dr. Diamond is a “phenomenal speaker” who values “our ideas, opinions, and questions,” and praise her capacity to support learning with “difficult dialogues.” The fact that Professor Diamond has developed coursework that challenges students yet makes them feel supported is a testament to her thoroughness, thoughtfulness and excellence.

Claudia Geist

Associate Professor, Gender Studies and Sociology

University of Utah Presidential Scholar

The annual awards recognize the extraordinary academic accomplishments and scholarly potential of mid-career faculty. Each award includes 3 years of financial support to help the faculty members advance their teaching, research and/or artistic work.

Dr. Claudia Geist’s examinations of constructions of family and gender, life-course decisions about pregnancy and family planning and gendered division of labor come at a time of transition and expansion of genders. Her ongoing research analyzes ways to appraise nuance in gender expression in survey research and help future health care providers understand gender and incorporate gender identity in their interactions.

Her nominator, Cynthia Berg, dean of CSBS, said of Geist: “[she] is a cutting-edge thinker whose ideas are key to understanding gendered issues in our time.” Her Transform colleagues could not agree more!

Kim Hackford-Peer

Associate Chair, Gender Studies

University of Utah Distinguished Teaching Award

Our brilliant Dr. Hackford-Peer was recognized with the 2022 University of Utah’s Distinguished Teaching Award. This award honors significant contributions to the teaching mission of the University of Utah. Recipients demonstrate a consistent record of outstanding teaching performance and implement effective and innovative teaching methods which demonstrate exceptional abilities to motivate student learning.

One of Hackford-Peer’s nominators noted “her magical ability to teach theory that links to real-world insights primes our students to enter other courses ready to roll. She sends students off to other scholar-teachers ready to hear more, learn more, push more, do more—all because they’ve come through Dr. Hackford-Peer and gained her exquisite preparation of their minds through her listening, prompting and teacherly intelligence.”

Susie Porter

Professor, Gender Studies and History

Presidential Societal Impact Scholar Award

The University of Utah’s Presidential Societal Impact Scholars are recognized experts in their fields and disciplines. They share and translate their scholarship, research, creative activities and ideas with opinion leaders, policy makers, the general public and other audiences outside the university and in ways that can transform society.

Our very own Dr. Susie Porter was selected a recipient of this award. She has leveraged her disciplinary expertise through community engaged scholarship to enrich our university, local communities, and the national public. Dr. Porter is a shining example of a scholar whose work does not remain locked within the walls of academia.