Three Penn scholars—School of Nursing Dean Afaf Meleis, Director of the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute Craig B. Thompson and Director of Medical Pathology John Q. Trojanowski—have been elected to the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine. Members are chosen for their contributions to health and medicine or to related fields, such as social and behavioral sciences, law, administration and economics. Elected members engage in a broad range of studies on health policy issues; current projects include a study on how to assure the health of the public in the 21st century and a review of policies regarding microbial threats.

Kid champion

School of Social Work Professor Carol Wilson Spigner has received the Child Welfare League of America’s Pioneer in Adoption award, which recognizes her leadership in matters of adoption. Before coming to teach at Penn, Spigner served as the associate commissioner of the Children’s Bureau at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration. In that position, she was responsible for administering federal child-welfare programs.

Susan Stewart, professor of English, has won this year’s Christian Gauss Award for her book, “Poetry and the Fate of the Senses.” Established by Phi Beta Kappa Senate in honor of the late Christian Gauss, a Princeton University scholar, the award acknowledges outstanding scholarly books published in the U.S. in the field of literary scholarship or criticism. Stewart’s book, which draws on readings from the ancient Greeks to postmodern poets, examines how poetry creates meanings between persons.

The Wharton School’s Wharton Research Data Service (WRDS) has received a 2003 CIO Magazine Enterprise Value Award. The award honors organizations for their information technology systems. WRDS is a web-based data service that provides academic researchers instant access to over a terabyte of research data. It is currently licensed to more than 70 top-tier business schools.