Awards and Honors

The American Folklore Society, the U.S.-based international society for the field of folklore studies, has bestowed its highest award for scholarship, the AFS Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award, on Professor Wolfgang Mieder of the UVM Department of German and Russian. Diane Goldstein, president of the society, says Mieder is a "leading global ambassador for folklore." "He has written several indispensable reference works and bibliographies and has contributed significantly to the intellectual history of international folklore studies," she says. "He has also crossed disciplinary boundaries, making a significant impact on the allied fields of politics, literature, history, art, linguistics and media studies."

Third-year University of Vermont medical student Vanessa Patten was awarded a $10,000 scholarship by the Vermont Medical Society’s Education and Research Foundation at the Society’s annual meeting, held October 27, 2012 in Woodstock, Vt. Read more.

Publications and Presentations

Building on surprising 2011 study results – that asthma in obese individuals is due to a combination of the effects of weight on airway function and metabolic changes in fat affecting the airways – Associate Professor Anne Dixon and colleagues recently reported another critical discovery in the Oct. 1 American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. The new results show that the adipose – or fat – tissue around the abdomen appears to play a role in abnormal airway function in obese individuals. Read more.