The Graduate School awarded six UW-Madison faculty members with the annual Kellett Mid-Career Award for their research. The award is given to faculty who worked five to 20 years beyond their first tenured position.
This year's honorees, Harry Brighouse, Mark Ediger, Kenneth Goldstein, Kenneth Raffa, William Engels and Leonard Abbeduto, will each receive $60,000 for future research.
Brighouse, who conducts research in the philosophy department, said he is currently working with Oxford political theorist Adam Smith on determining how family fits morally into a just society.
According to Brighouse, research in the philosophy department differs from research in other disciplines.
It doesn't involve going through archives or doing experiments, but in thinking as carefully as possible about arguments concerning matters for which empirical evidence does not give us the answers,"" he said.
Brighouse also said philosophical research differs from other disciplines in the relationship it creates between undergraduates and professors.
""On the one hand it is quite difficult and technical, and so hard for undergraduates to do original work in, but on the other hand it requires imagination and insight, so that undergraduates can teach their professors interesting things,"" he said.
Brighouse said he plans to use the award money for his current research and three new projects.
""We plan to develop a defense of a very strong principle of gender equality and explore some reform ideas that might help to implement that principle,"" he said.
Ediger, who has conducted research in the chemistry department for 28 years and has owned his own lab for 23 years, attributes his work to several role models.
Ediger said Galileo, whom he called ""in many ways, the first modern scientist,"" taught him to pursue experiments regardless of prior scientific findings.
Ediger said he and fellow researchers prepared possibly the most stable glasses ever made in a laboratory.
""Because they are more dense and energetically more stable than ordinary glasses, they resist crystallization and water uptake,"" he said.
Ediger said he plans to use the award for new experiments in the same general area.
""This type of funding lets me start new projects prior to landing a new federal grant, so that is a big advantage,"" he said.
Goldstein's research on political advertising, turnout, campaign finance, survey methodology, Israeli politics and presidential elections has appeared in political science, medical and law journals.
Goldstein said he would use his award for a variety of projects, including a survey with other UW-Madison colleagues during the 2008 election, a study of local political news coverage and a survey in Israel.
Raffa conducts research in entomology, studying how trees defend themselves against
insects, mechanisms by which insects overcome those defenses and processes by which predators, parasites and pathogens impact forest insects.
Raffa said he plans to use his award to continue his lab's research on forest insects.
""I've been most enthused about conducting studies that try to link pattern and process,"" Raffa said.
""UW-Madison provides the best environment possible for engaging in this approach, because it has a climate that fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and integration of applied and basic science.""
