Kudos

“Key Concepts in Urban Studies,” a textbook authored by Mark Gottdiener, professor of sociology, will be published in Chinese.

The book has sold briskly in the U.S. and Western Europe since it was published in 2003 by SAGE UK.

 It is the second textbook authored by Gottdiener to be published in Chinese. The third edition of “The New Urban Sociology” (originally published in 1994 and now revised for a fifth edition) was published in China in 2010.

Gottdiener spent six weeks this summer teaching urban sociology at China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University, one of the world’s most highly ranked universities.

He is founder of what is frequently referred to as “the new urban sociology,” a field that considers the rise and fall of cities and regions, their class-shaped patterns of capitalistic urban development, real estate manipulations and their symbolic dimensions.

He also developed a new urban paradigm that focuses on such things as cultural semiotics and popular culture, and how cultural issues are related to social problems.

He has written 14 books on these subjects, and is the recipient of numerous major awards and distinctions for outstanding contributions to his field.

Michael Refern, associate dean for administrative services for the School of Nursing, has been named to Business First’s “40 under Forty” list, which recognizes local residents under the age of 40 for professional success and community involvement.

The “40 under Forty” recipients will be saluted during a luncheon on Nov. 7 in the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center.

Xiaoqing Li, associate professor of mathematics, received a Morningside Silver Medal at the opening ceremony of the Sixth International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians (ICCM) held in July in Taipei.

The award citation recognizes Li’s “important research on the analytic properties of automorphic L-functions and their applications … Her work has contributed to one of the most important problems in number theory, the so-called Lindeloff hypothesis.”

Li also delivered an invited address at the congress in the “Number Theory, Automorphic Forms and Arithmetic Geometry” section. 

The ICCM is a triennial event that brings together Chinese mathematicians and their peers from across the globe to discuss the latest research developments in both pure and applied mathematics.

The Morningside Medal, the most prestigious award for young Chinese mathematicians, is awarded to exceptional mathematicians of Chinese descent under the age of 45 for their seminal achievements in mathematics and applied mathematics. Each Morningside medalist receives a certificate, a medal and cash award of $25,000 (U.S.) for a gold medal or 10,000 for a silver medal.

William McDonnell, senior associate dean, School of Architecture and Planning, has been named HR Executive of the Year by Business First.

McDonnell serves as chief financial officer, chief of staff, associate dean for research, facilities planning management officer and senior adviser to the dean of the architecture school.

He received the award during a luncheon on Sept. 12 honoring recipients of the financial newspaper’s HR Leadership Awards.