Accolades

The American Educational Research Association has given Anthony Bryk, the Marshall Field IV Professor in Sociology, its highest recognition, the Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award.

Bryk, the founding director for the Consortium on Chicago School Research, was recognized for his contributions to the development of statistical models, his research on school improvement and his continuing commitment to using this research to help improve education for children in Chicago.

The association also presented its Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award, for an outstanding article published in an AERA journal, to a team of researchers with the Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Joining Bryk on this team are Elaine Allensworth, Research Associate for the Consortium on Chicago School Research; Fred Newman, University of Wisconsin; and BetsAnn Smith, University of Minnesota. The authors were honored for their article, "Instructional Program Coherence: What It Is and Why It Should Guide School Improvement Policy," published in Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis.

The association also gave Nicole Pinkard, Research Associate in the Center for School Improvement, the Early Career Contributions Award for her design research on education technologies to support early literacy acquisition among minority children.

The Association of Private Enterprise Education awarded its Adam Smith Award on Monday, April 7, to Richard Epstein, the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School.

The annual award is given to scholars "who have made a sustained contribution to the survival of a free-market economy."

The organization cited Epstein for "challenging conventional thinking about legal institutions and showing how critical it is to have a legal framework that respects individual freedom. He also has proposed policies that will serve Americans better over the long run by protecting property rights and the beneficial incentives they engender."

The Society of Hospital Medicine has recently recognized David Meltzer, Associate Professor in Medicine, for outstanding research and medical contributions in the area of hospital medicine. Meltzer received the society's Young Investigator Award for several recent research achievements and for his continuing promise as a young researcher.

The Society of Hospital Medicine is the premier U.S. medical society representing hospitalists, physicians whose primary professional focus is the general medical care of hospitalized patients.

Most recently, Meltzer was lead researcher for the study "Effects of Physician Experience on Costs and Outcomes on an Academic General Medicine Service: Results of a Trial of Hospitalists," which was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The research demonstrated that as hospitalists become more experienced, they can reduce the costs of care for hospitalized patients, decrease average lengths of stay and, most importantly, reduce patient mortality rates.