The Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics is pleased to recognize the accomplishments and activities of its faculty, staff, students, alumni and supporters:
Dianne Bystrom, director emerita, was elected director of communications for the League of Women Voters of Nebraska at its annual meeting on April 24. In the newly created position, she will work to ensure regular and timely communication about the activities, events, programs and other news of the LWVNE through its website, social media, MailChimp eblasts, press releases and the Nebraska Voter newsletter. Bystrom served as co-president of the LWVNE from April 2019 to April 2021.
Daniela Dimitrova, professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, has been honored with a Fulbright Fellowship. The award, the Fulbright-University of Vienna Visiting Professor of Social Sciences, will allow Dimitrova to teach, conduct research and mentor students at the University of Vienna in Austria. The project, “Global Migration and the Media,” will begin in the summer of 2022. Dimitrova will also publish a textbook, “Global Journalism: Understanding World Media Systems,” by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers this month.
Aja Holmes, a graduate teaching assistant for the Catt Center during the 2013-2014 academic year, has accepted a position as the assistant dean of students, director of community living at the University of San Francisco.
Karen Kedrowski, center director, has been named to the Steering Committee of the Faculty Network for Student Voting Rights, a new organization focused on organizing cross-institutional coalitions of faculty at the state level to ensure student voting rights. On June 17, Kedrowski presented the 2021 Making Democracy Work Award to Sebha Faheem, a 2021 Iowa State graduate in biological systems engineering and student voting engagement intern with the center, at the League of Women Voters of Ames and Story County’s annual meeting in Ames. On June 30, she appeared on Iowa Public Radio’s “River to River.” On July 7, she spoke to a group of international women civic leaders via Zoom as part of the Women in Politics and Civil Society project through the Iowa International Center. A biographical sketch of suffragist Anne E. Heslet Jenks written by Kedrowski was recently published as part of the “Biographical Database of Militant Woman Suffragists, 1913-1920,” by Alexander Street.
Amy Erica Smith, LAS Dean’s Professor and associate professor of political science at Iowa State, was awarded the 2021 Theda Skocpol Prize for Emerging Scholars by the Comparative Politics section of the American Political Science Association. The prize recognizes emerging academics up to ten years post-Ph.D. for scholarly excellence in political science.
Kelly Winfrey, coordinator of research and outreach for the center and assistant professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, co-authored the article “Young Women’s Political Discussion on Social Media in the 2016 Presidential Election,” which was published in the Ohio Communication Journal in June.