During summer 2025, Dr. Alison Aune (Art and Design) will have paintings exhibited in a group exhibition “Den Blå Tråden (The Blue Thread)” at the Bonadsmuseum, Museum of Swedish Folk Painting, in Unnaryd, Sweden. Currently, her work is in the “Friends of Finland” exhibition at the Finnish-American Heritage Center in Hancock, Mich. Dr. Aune also has paintings in the exhibition she co-curated with Wendy Savage “Leading with our Hearts: Nordic, Ojibwe, and Sami Designs from Nature” at the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa. She had paintings in the exhibition “Swedish Folk Paintings and Contemporary Textiles: Now and Then” at the Scandinavian Festival, Hjemkomst Museum, Moorhead, Minn. (2024), and she had a solo exhibition “Minnesota-Swedish Folk Paintings” at the Nordic Center in Duluth (2024). Dr Aune was a 2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board to serve as a culture bearer to engage Minnesotans in her creative practice.
Dr. Ryan Bergstrom (Geography) spent the 2023-2024 academic year at Kristianstad University in Sweden as a Fulbright Scholar.
Assistant Professor Rebecca Boyle (English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies) received the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching for 2024-2025.
Dr. Evan Brier (English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies) published Novel Competition: American Fiction and the Cultural Economy, 1965–1999 (University of Iowa Press, 2024). https://uipress.uiowa.edu/books/novel-competition
Alumnus Reese Britts (Theatre ‘19) debuted on Broadway in & Juliet.
Assistant Professor Patrick Lee Clark (English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies) released new music and received glowing notices in Lyrical Odyssey, New Fire Magazine, and The Pit London.
Dr. Ryan Goei (Communication) received a JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) Award from the U of M system.
Dr. David Gore (Communication) earned top paper honors for his work, “Refuge Amidst the Ruins: On the (Im)Possibility of Safe Haven in the Anthropocene,” from the Western States Communication Association, a paper co-authored with Dr. Joshua Barnett that was inspired by the UMD invited lecture by Harvard’s Dr. Jesse Keenan in 2019.
Undergraduate Lou Himes (Geographic Information Science and Spanish Studies ’25) won the 2024 Minnesota GISLIS consortium undergraduate student presentation competition in October.
Dr. Carter Meland (American Indian Studies) and Dr. Jeanine Weekes Schroer (Philosophy) received the Horace T. Morse Distinguished Teaching Awards.
Alumnus Noah Mercil (Jazz Studies ‘19) debuted a new musical, "The Dead Memoirs."
Dr. Ryuta Nakajima (Painting) co-founded Kwahuu Ocean Co., Ltd. which completed a round of funding from Lifetime Ventures to engage in the development of sustainable squid farming systems.
Alumnus Daniel Oyinloye (Digital Arts ’09) released the single “THE BiG THiNGS.”
Dr. Kristin Riker-Coleman (Geography) attended Snow School at the University of California Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Lab in January 2025.
Dr. Justin Henry Rubin (Music) was commissioned by the Ministerio de Cultura in Spain to compose a trio in honor of the painter Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, who will have an exhibition in the United States. The trio includes the internationally renowned young Spanish cellist, Carlos Vidal, as well as two established pianists, the Brazilian-born Márcio Bezerra and native of the Basque Country, Estibaliz Gastesi. His new composition, “Un Pavana para el Maestro de la Luz,” is based on a piece by the Renaissance musician Luis de Milán (c. 1500 – c. 1561) from his collection Libro de Música de Vihuela de mano published in Valencia in 1536.
Alumna Karen Savage-Blue (Art Education ’93) received the 2025 George Morrison Artist Award from the Arrowhead Regional Art Council.
Dr. Burke Scarbrough (English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies) received the Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Public Service for 2024-25.
Dr. Sara Sowers-Wills (English, Linguistics, and Writing Studies) had a series of five poems appear in Always Crashing in October 2024; one of them, “The Orphans,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her paper “First View: Phonology from the Inside Out: Constructed Language as a Pedagogical Tool” appeared in a special pedagogy-focused issue of the Canadian Journal of Linguistics in October 2024.
The student organization, the Socratic Society, brought philosophy into the Duluth community this fall with a discussion panel on the philosophy of Dungeons & Dragons at the Loch Cafe and Games shop. PHOTO
Dr. Kai Vance (Communication) was celebrated in April at the Eastern Communication Association’s annual conference for his paper, "Assessing the impact of radicalization on domestic terrorism and political violence: Empirical evidence from the U.S."
Dr. Jennifer Webb (Art & Design) received the John Tate Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising.
Dr. Janelle L. Wilson (Studies in Justice, Culture, & Social Change) published “Helping Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic” and “Make Up Your Mind: Benefits of a Growth Mindset” in Psychology Today. She was second-author with Dr. Daniel D. Martin (Emeritus Professor of Sociology) for “Boundary Work and Strategies of Compliance: The Underlife of the Ivory Tower” in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.