For the Record provides information about recent professional activities and honors of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Recent presentations, honors and memorials include the following:

Presentations

On April 10, 2026, Margaret Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and professor of humanities, gave a paper titled “Veterans’ Memoirs as History and as Activism: The Case of Grant K. Goodman" at the City University of New York Graduate Center. The occasion was "In Their Own Words: A Conference on Veterans' Memoirs," which was an event open to the public and organized by the Biography and Memoir Program at the City University of New York. Stetz's paper discussed the short memoir by Grant K. Goodman (1924-2014) that she and her coeditor, Bonnie B. C. Oh, included in their 2001 volume of essays, Legacies of the Comfort Women of WWII (M. E. Sharpe, 2001), which was the first scholarly essay collection on the subject of WWII-era military sexual slavery. As a 20-year-old officer in the U. S. Army, Goodman was sent to Tokyo at the end of the war and assigned to translate official Japanese files during the Allied occupation of Japan. He was responsible for finding documentation of the Japanese government's direct involvement in and supervision of the military brothels in which several hundred thousand Asian underage girls and women were imprisoned. The records that he discovered and later made public helped to fuel the international activist movement in support of the "comfort women" survivors of this war crime.

On May 14, 2026, Julie McGee, interim associate University librarian for special collections and director of museums, was a contributing presenter for Voices in Contemporary Art (VoCA), Visual Artists Interview Workshop, which brought together diverse professionals from around the world keen to think through best practices and new ways to be curious and generous when engaging artists in oral interviews.

Honors

On May 18, 2026, the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR) will celebrate the exemplary contributions of three UD employees. Mark VanGessel, extension specialist and professor of integrated weed management, will receive the Excellence in Extension Award. Shreeram Inamdar, professor of watershed sciences in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, will receive the Excellence in Research Award. Barbara Scott, associate scientist at the Carvel Research and Education Center, will receive the Excellence in Service Award. CANR also celebrates three named professorships: The Department of Animal and Food Sciences’ Kalmia Kniel has been named Unidel S. Hallock du Pont Chair, which honors outstanding teaching and scholarship in the college; Deborah Delaney has been selected as the Charles P. Townsend Family Professor of Pollinator Science, which is named in honor of generous benefactors and long-time supporters of the college and supports an outstanding continuing track faculty member with a primary teaching appointment in entomology; and Doug Tallamy has been re-named the T.A. Baker Professor of Agriculture and Natural Resources, which honors Thomas A. Baker, who was a UD professor of animal husbandry, for nearly four decades. CANR has also  bestowed the 2026 William J. Benton Graduate Student Awards on Harkirat Mashiana, M.S. in plant science, and Thabu Mugala. a Ph.D. candidate in entomology and wildlife ecology. The award is presented annually to two graduate students (one Ph.D. and one M.S.). Students who excel in research and have an outstanding record of academic accomplishments and service to their profession are eligible for nomination.

Julia Hamer-Light, doctoral candidate in the Department of Art History, is the recipient of the inaugural Bernie L. Herman Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Material Culture Studies from the Center for Material Culture Studies (CMCS). Hamer-Light’s dissertation, “Part of the Continuum: Arthur Amiotte’s Fiber Wall Hangings and Lakhóta Ecological Pedagogy, 1960-1978,” examines the woven textiles and teaching practices of Oglala Lakhóta artist-educator Arthur Amiotte on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Hamer-Light turns to land-based, Indigenous-led experiential pedagogy to illuminate new connections among modernist practice, ecocriticism and studio craft. “Part of the Continuum” is a stunning example of theoretical virtuosity, ethical scholarship and beautiful writing — all qualities of scholarship that were valued by the late Bernie Herman. Two projects received Honorable Mention: Juliana Jones-Beaton (Department of English), “A Body that Fruits: The Fungus in Contemporary Speculative Fiction,”  and Aidi Bao (preservation studies), “Craquelure in the Lacquered Guqin from the Song-Qing Dynasties: Connoisseurship, Materiality and Conservation.” Bernie L. Herman was a founding director of CMCS and an internationally renowned scholar of material culture studies, vernacular architecture, outsider art and Southern foodways. The prize will be awarded annually to an outstanding capstone graduate project at UD focusing on material culture studies. The winning project will demonstrate the qualities that characterized Dr. Herman’s scholarship: thematic and methodological originality, scholarly rigor and eloquent prose.

Brittany Haywood, coastal ecology specialist for Delaware Sea Grant, received the Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant Region Early Career Achievement Award at the Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant Regional Meeting held at the end of April in Red Bank, New Jersey. The award is designed to recognize individual Sea Grant professionals who have shown noteworthy enthusiasm, performance, accomplishments and impact during their early Sea Grant careers. The Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant Early Career Achievement Award is the only Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant-sponsored award to recognize individual accomplishments during Sea Grant careers. Haywood joined Delaware Sea Grant in 2023. The daughter of a waterman, Haywood has worked on the water her whole life and has held positions at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) in seagrass restoration and monitoring and water quality, as well as the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) in wetlands monitoring, assessment and drainage. With Delaware Sea Grant, she has piloted a program to train community members to find submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) through the SAV Seekers program. She has also continued work looking for lost or abandoned crab pots in Delaware’s waterways. Chris Petrone, director of Delaware Sea Grant’s Marine Advisory Service, said Delaware Sea Grant is lucky to have Haywood as part of the team. “Brittany came to Delaware Sea Grant with a wealth of experience and contacts from her past positions, and she has leveraged them to grow our derelict crab pot work and convene an impactful group of people representing a host of organizations and agencies to ramp up the state’s awareness, interest and action in creating and restoring submerged aquatic vegetation beds, in fresh and saltwater,” Petrone said. Calling the award “completely unexpected,” Haywood said, “The work around submerged aquatic vegetation and derelict crab pots has always been about bringing people together to solve real coastal challenges, so it’s incredibly meaningful to have those efforts recognized by the Mid-Atlantic Sea Grant community.”

In Memoriam

Barbara L. Viera, a pioneer in women’s athletics who built a national and international reputation for excellence during her 27-year volleyball head coaching career at UD, died April 28, 2026, at the age of 85. Professor Emerita Viera had the longest tenure in UD women’s athletics history, and the University's volleyball court is named in her honor. She was inducted into the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame in 2004.

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