Sarah Goddard Power Award

Questions?  Contact Dr. Liz DeBetta at [email protected].

Sarah Power was a guiding light for the causes of women’s rights, human rights, education, and press freedom. During her distinguished career, she worked tirelessly as a Regent of the University of Michigan, and to promote women and minorities, including the establishment of women’s intercollegiate athletics in 1975.

Sarah Power believed passionately in the essential goodness of people, and in their desire and potential for contribution and achievement if given a fair opportunity. “My interest in opening up the system is simple. I want us to create reasonable options for all human beings, women and men. I want us to ensure the individual rights by which all persons can develop their potential, which will surely result in improved quality of life for both women and men.”

Sarah Power was also known and respected for her work on the national and international level – with the United Nations, as a presidentially appointed delegate to four worldwide UN conferences, and as Chair of the US National Commission for UNESCO which, she said, is “the only international agency concerned with those immeasurably precious aspects of the human condition – education, science, and culture – which make man what he is.”

Sarah Power was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Social Affairs under President Jimmy Carter. In 1980 she was honored in a joint resolution of tribute by the Michigan Legislature for her work as “one of our State’s most active and most important citizens in her dedication to serving humanity.” She was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 1988.

U-M Law Professor Sallyanne Payton said that the long list of Sarah Power’s accomplishments does not reflect the total impact of her contributions. Rather, she said, the legacy which Sarah Power has left is the strength of her example. “If we can just pass along what she has given to us, that light will go forth from this place.”

Academic Women’s Caucus is pleased to have presented awards to the following recipients:

2024:

Ruth Behar is the James W. Fernandez Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology and is affiliated with Women’s Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, Judaic Studies, and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at U-M.

She is a cultural anthropologist whose research in Spain, Mexico, and Cuba bridges cultures, languages, and academic disciplines. Her contributions include nine anthropology books that she has written or edited, over sixty articles, and an award-winning ethnographic film, as well as essays, opinion pieces, poetry, fiction, and interviews conveying her insights to the general public. In the field of feminist anthropology, she has gained readers across the humanities and social sciences for her acclaimed books, Translated Woman, The Vulnerable Observer, An Island Called Home, Traveling Heavy, and her co-edited anthology, Women Writing Culture.

Her coming-of-age novels explore the challenges of girlhood. In Lucky Broken Girl, drawing on her own experience, she examines the resilience of a ten-year-old Cuban immigrant girl who spends a year in a body cast recovering from a devastating injury. In Letters from Cuba, she examines the experience of a Polish Jewish immigrant girl working to bring her family in Poland to safety in Cuba on the eve of WWII. Her new novel, Across So Many Seas, tells the stories of four girls in different eras connecting to their Sephardic heritage while seeking freedom. These books convey the insights of feminist anthropology to readers of all ages and backgrounds.

At U-M, Dr. Behar’s courses on Cuba, the concept of home, and blurred genres receive rave reviews from students. Her course on ethnographic writing serves as a foundational seminar for students in the humanities and social sciences. Her mentorship has fostered the voices of emerging women scholars of diverse backgrounds. As a faculty graduate advisor, she has worked with more than 35 women students in Anthropology, History, Education, Social Work, American Culture, English, Creative Writing, and other disciplines. She has received the Circle Award from La Celebración Latina, an award for Distinguished Graduate Mentoring in the Humanities, the Michigan Humanities Award, and an Excellence in Education Award.

Born in Cuba, she was the first Latina to receive a MacArthur “Genius” Award and has received numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Fulbright Senior Fellowships, and a Distinguished Alumna Award from Wesleyan University. The Carnegie Corporation named her a “Great Immigrant” and she is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Yan Chen is the Daniel Kahneman Collegiate Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan and a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Economics at Tsinghua University. She served as the president (2015-17) of the Economic Science Association (ESA), an international organization of experimental economists. 

Chen’s research interests are in behavioral and experimental economics, market design, and the economics of information technology. She has published in leading economics and management journals, such as the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Economic Theory, and Management Science, and general interest journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She served as an Advisory Editor at Games and Economic Behavior (2013-2020), and a Department Editor (Behavioral Economics and Decision Analysis) of Management Science from 2018-2022.

Chen is an award-winning instructor, having taught 18 courses in the School of Information and the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan. Since 2019, she has developed and taught two online courses in the new Master of Applied Data Science program at Michigan, including (1) Experiment Design and Analysis; and (2) Data Science for Social Good. Both courses are open to the public under the Creative Commons license. 

For the past 24 years, Chen has strived to mentor and promote junior women and other under-represented groups in the economics profession. She started the ESA Mentoring Program during her presidency and serves as the first Director of Mentoring (2018-24). In 2019, she received the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award for her effort to “further the status of women in the economics profession.” At the University of Michigan, she has mentored many graduate students and junior faculty members. She co-founded the Behavioral and Experimental Economics Lab where graduate students and faculty members can present their research ideas and work-in-progress in a friendly and constructive environment.

Amanda Esquivel is an Associate Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. As an NSF-funded injury biomechanist, she conducts research predominantly focused on the fundamental understanding and prevention of injuries. A recurring theme in her work is the exploration of injuries disproportionately affecting women and girls. These research initiatives include 1) investigating the use of wearable technology to prevent injuries to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), 2) assessing the efficacy of headgear in traditionally helmetless sports, and 3) examining the head kinematics and neck muscle response to simulated minor frontal perturbations in women. In addition, she has studied the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on research capacity, productivity, and work-life balance in female STEM faculty. She has supported and mentored numerous graduate and undergraduate students, the majority of whom have been women. 

Dr. Esquivel is dedicated to encouraging and guiding underrepresented minorities in engineering. She serves as the Faculty Advisor to the Society of Women Engineers on the Dearborn campus, which has over 400 members. Recognizing her efforts, her students nominated her for the Outstanding Student Organization Advisor award, which she received in 2021. 

Committed to inspiring future engineers, Dr. Esquivel actively coordinates and participates in numerous outreach events. She has engaged with hundreds of elementary and middle school students promoting engineering and science as a career. She has appeared at STEM career events at a local all-girls high school, and, in collaboration with a local Detroit charter school, organized an extensive day-long outreach event that included hands-on lab activities. As Dr. Esquivel carries on with her work, she remains committed to her vision of an inclusive and innovative engineering community.

Holly Hughes is a Professor in the Stamps School of Art and Design, with joint appointments in Theatre and Drama and Women and Gender Studies. She is the current Director of the BFA in Interarts Performance, a program she co-founded with Associate Professor Malcolm Tulip. She is a writer and performance artist known for using humor to ask provocative questions about queer identity and sexuality from an intersectional feminist perspective.

After receiving her BA Magna Cum Laude from Kalamazoo College, Hughes moved to New York City to be part of the inaugural class of the New York Feminist Art Institute, an experimental art school founded by members of the Heresies Collective which used methods developed in feminist and social justice movements as pedagogical methods.    Foreswearing the dominant Bauhaus system, in lieu of methods like consciousness-raising and experiential learning, students who ranged in age from 18 to 76 explored themes that had not been publicly addressed before then.

Hughes later helped found the WOW Café Theatre, in the East Village, which is the oldest continuously operating lesbian and trans women cultural institution in the world.   While at WOW, she created experimental theatre with artists including Split Britches, Carmelita Tropicana, and TONY award winner Lisa Kron. WOW is the subject of her most recent book project, co-edited with Jill S. Dolan and Carmelita Tropicana, “Memories of the Revolution: The First Ten Years of the WOW Café,” University of Michigan, 2016. She began performing in other venues across the country, where she shared stages with Karen Finley, Spaulding Gray, Annie Sprinkle, Anna Deavere Smith, the Blue Man Group and many others.

One of her earliest plays, The Well of Horniness, developed the notion of a specifically lesbian version of camp and is seen as a foundational text in queer performance studies. It has multiple performances in venues every year since it was first produced and has been the cause of both celebrations and censorship. Today, it is frequently produced in colleges and universities, where she is often called on to discuss her work and to talk about developing a theatrical language to explore queer women’s erotics.

Hughes is the recipient of 7 NEA fellowships and grants, 5 New York State Council Grants, 4 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, 3 Multi-Art Project Grants, as well as funding from the Jerome, Ford, Franklin Furnace, and Aestrea Foundations. She has won 2 Obie awards, a GLAAD Media Award, and a Lambda Book Award. Hughes is a 2011 Guggenheim fellow and has been a resident at MacDowell and Bogliasco.

Hughes is perhaps best known as one of the “NEA 4” artists of the 1990s. Along with two other queer performers, Tim Miller and John Fleck, and feminist artist Karen Finley, Hughes found herself in the middle of the culture wars as conservative politicians targeted queer cultural expression and activism at the height of the AIDS epidemic.    With the other artists, Hughes sued the National Endowment for the Arts for their explicit ban on the funding of “homoerotic art,” a case that was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the ban 7 to 1, with liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg announcing that if they were forced to fund “homosexual” art they would have to fund Nazi art.

Hughes has been on the faculty at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design since 2001. She is deeply honored to have the opportunity to work with young people as they use creative work to provoke dialogue. She honors her queer ancestry and offers this hope to her students that they would be the glitter that they want to see in the world.

2023:

Regina Baucom
Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Graduate Studies in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department

Monique Ward
Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Psychology

Jessica Tischler
Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry, Department of Natural Sciences

Jenna Wiens
Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Co-Director of Precision Health, and Associate Director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

2022:

A. Oveta Fuller
Associate Professor, Microbiology and Immunology, U-M Medical School

Reshma Jagsi
Newman Family Professor, Deputy Chair of Radiation Oncology, and Director, Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine

Bhramar Mukherjee
John D. Kalbfleisch Collegiate Professor, Chair of Biostatistics; Professor of Epidemiology and Global Public Health, School of Public Health

2021:

Isis Settles
Professor, Psychology, Afroamerican and African Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies

Dawn M. Tilbury
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Sonya Jacobs
Sarah Goddard Power Distinguished Service Awards
Chief Organizational Learning Officer, University of Michigan
Senior Director, Faculty and Leadership Development at Michigan Medicine

Ellen Judge-Gonzalez
Sarah Goddard Power Distinguished Service Awards
Director, SOAR program, University of Michigan-Dearborn

2020:

Cathleen Connell
Professor, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education

Allison Steiner
Professor, Department of Climate and Space Science and Engineering

2019:

Rada Mihalcea
Professor, Computer Science and Engineering and Director of the Michigan Artificial Intelligence Lab

Jody R. Lori
Professor and Associate Dean, Global Affairs, School of Nursing, and Director of PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center for Nursing and Midwifery, School of Nursing

2018:

Kimberlee Kearfott, Sc.D. CHP
Professor, Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences

Sofia Merajver, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Internal Medicine and Epidemiology
Scientific Director, Breast Oncology Program Director, Breast & Ovarian Cancer Risk Evaluation Program

2016:

Valeria M. Bertacco, Ph.D.
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Sally Camper, Ph.D.
James V. Neel Professor and Department Chair of Human Genetics

Patricia W. Coleman-Burns, Ph.D.
Professor of Nursing

Gloria D. Thomas, Ph.D.
Sarah Goddard Power Distinguished Service Award
Director, Center for the Education of Women

2015:

Ann Evans Larimore
Sarah Goddard Power Honorary Award
Professor Emerita, Geography and Women’s Studies

Carol Rossier Bradford, M.D.
Professor and Chair of Otolaryngology, Co-Director, Head and Neck Oncology Program

Lilia M. Cortina
Associate Professor of Psychology, Associate Professor and Graduate Director of Women’s Studies

Dee E. Fenner, M.D.
Furlong Professor of Women’s Health, Director of Gynecology, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology

2014:

Dr. Juanita L. Merchant, H. Marvin Pollard Professor of Gastrointestinal Sciences, professor of internal medicine, and molecular and integrative physiology, U-M Medical School

Dr. Lisa A. Newman, Professor of Surgery, U-M Medical School

2013:

Mieko Yoshihama, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Social Work

Avery Demond, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Director,
Environmental and Water Resources Engineering
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Elizabeth Cole, Ph.D.
Professor, Women’s Studies, Psychology, and Afroamerican & African Studies
Chair, Women’s Studies Department

2012:

Cynthia Luz Marcelo
Research emerita professor of surgery, Department of Surgery, Medical School

Deborah Goldberg
Elzada U. Clover Collegiate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Denise Sekaquaptewa
Professor of Psychology, LSA

Patricia Warner
Executive Director of C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital

2011:

Carolyn Sampselle
Director, Carolyn K Davis Collegiate Professor, School of Nursing, Professor of women’s Studies, LSA and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Lori Pierce
Vice Provost of Academic and Faculty Affairs and Professor of Radiation Oncology
Sarah Goddard Power Distinguished Award

Jill Becker
Professor of Psychology and Professor at the Behavioral Neuroscience Institute
Rhetaugh Dumas Progress in Diversity Award The American Culture Department of LSA

2010:

Carol S. Jacobsen
Professor, School of Art and Design and Women’s Studies

Cindy Schipani
Professor of Business Law, Professor of Business Administration, Chair of Law, History and Communication

Elizabeth Ann Duell
Emeritus Professor, Dermatology, the Medical School

2009:

Carol J. Boyd
Director of Institute for Research Women & Gender, Professor of Nursing and Women’s Studies

Cinda-Sue Davis
Program Director of Women in Science and Engineering

Rebecca McGowan
2009 Honorary Sarah Goddard Power Award
Regenta Emerita, University of Michigan

2008:

Suzanne L. Bergeron
Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Social Sciences; Director of Women’s & Gender Studies

John H. Vandermeer
Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Carol S. Hollenshead
2008 Sarah Goddard Power Distinguished Service
Director of Center for the Education of Women and Chair of President’s Advisory Commission on Women’s Issues

2007:

Karin M. Muraszko Professor and Chair of Neurosurgery, Professor Plastic Surgery, Surgery, Department Communicable Diseases

Martha E. Pollack
Professor and Chair of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Chair of the Division of Computer Science

2006:

Kate Barald
Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Associate Director, PIBS

Carroll Smith-Rosenberg
Professor of History, Women’s Studies and American Studies

2005:

Carol Fierke
Professor of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry

Timothy R. B. Johnson
Professor of Diseases of Women and Children and Obstetrics and Gynecology

Karen Dickinson
2005 AWC Distinguished Service
Relationship Manager Information tech CTR Services distinguished Service Award)

2004:

Mary E. Corcoran
Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies

Janet R. Gilsdorf
Professor of Pediatrics and Communicable Disease and Professor of Epidemiology

Marilee Benore
Associate Professor of Biology and Biochemistry

2003:

Seyhan Nurettin Ege
Professor Emerita, Chemistry

Lora Bex Lempert
Associate Professor of Sociology Aline Souls Associate University Librarian California State University, Hayward

Aline Soules
2003 AWC Distinguished Service
Associate University Librarian
California State University, Hayward

2002:

Noemi G. Mirkin
Assistant Research Scientist Biophysics Research Division

Lisa A. Tedesco
Vice President and Secretary of University of Michigan

2001:

James E. Gruber
Professor of Sociology

Jayne A. Thorson
Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs, Medical School

2000:

Peggy Kahn
Professor of Political Science, Women and Gender Studies Program; Research Scientist in Center for the Education of Women

Anne W. Monterio
Assistant Dean, College of Engineering

Patricia Shure
Lecturer and Researcher, Mathematics

1999:

Christin Carter-Su
Professor of Physiology; Chief of Biomedical Research Division of Michigan Diabetes Research Training Center

Abigail J. Stewart
Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies, Director of Institute For Research on Women and Gender

1998:

Maria Comninou
Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

Linda N. Groat
Associate Professor of Architecture

1997:

Joanne Leonard
Professor of Art and Women’s Studies, Faculty Associate in Program in American Culture

Patricia K. Smith
Associate Professor of Economics, Director of Women’s Studies

1996:

Lois W. Gage
Professor Emerita of Nursing

Edie N. Goldenberg
Dean, College of Literature, Science and the Arts, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy

1995:

Mary L. Brake
Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering

Miriam H. Meisler
Professor of Human Genetics

1994:

Patricia Y. Gurin
Professor of Psychology and chair

Susan S. Lipschutz
Associate Provost

1993:

Martha J. Vicinus
Professor of English Language and Literature, and Women’s Studies

1992:

Inese Z. Beitins
Professor of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases

Susan S. Kilham
Associate Professor of Biology and Associate Research Scientist

Virginia B. Nordby
Associate Vice President for Student Affairs

1991:

Janice M. Jenkins
Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Jean P. Krisch
Associate Professor of Physics

Phyllis M. Ocker
Associate Director of Athletics for Women & Assistant Professor of Sports Management and Communications

1990:

Irene H. Butter
Professor of Public Health Policy and Administration

Peggie J. Hollingsworth
Assistant Research Scientist Department of Pharmacology, and Department of Environmental and Industrial Health

1989:

Beth Glover Reed
Associate Professor of Social Work and Women’s Studies

Helen M. Graves
Associate Professor of Political Science

1988:

Jacquelynne S. Eccles
Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies, Assistant Vice President for Research

Maxine Baca Zinn
Professor of Sociology

1987:

Muriel D. Ross
Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology

Eva Mueller
Professor of Economics

1986:

Jean W. Campbell
Director, Continuing Education for Women

Anita H. Payne
Professor of Biological Chemistry and Obstetrics and Gynecology

Rosemary C. Sarri
Professor of Social Work

1984:

Elizabeth M. Douvan
Professor of Psychology

Rhetaugh G. Dumas
Dean & Professor of Nursing

Marilyn Mason
Professor of Music and University Organist

Harriet C. Mills
Professor of Chinese, Far Eastern Languages and Literature

Barbara Furin Sloat
Director Of Women in Science Program