2018 GW OVPR Faculty Award Recipients

2018 Recipients

Distinguished Researcher Award

Chet C. Sherwood
Professor of Anthropology
Chet C. Sherwood’s research is driven by an interest in how brains differ among species, how this variation is correlated with behavior, how it is constrained by the rules of biological form, and how it is encoded in the genome. Within the scope of this research, a particular focus is the examination of human brain organization in comparison to other primates, with an emphasis on our closest living relatives, the great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans). Dr. Sherwood’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Leakey Foundation. He was a recipient of a James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award (2012). He currently co-directs the National Chimpanzee Brain Resource and the GW Mind-Brain Institute. He is also associate editor of the journals Brain Structure and Function and Brain, Behavior and Evolution.

Distinguished Scholar Award

David DeGrazia
Professor of Philosophy and Senior Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health Department of Bioethics
Professor DeGrazia's scholarship focuses primarily in applied ethics and moral theory and secondarily in personal identity theory and the philosophy of mind/cognitive sciences. He is the author, coauthor, or coeditor of seven published books, including his monographs Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Human Identity and Bioethics (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and Creation Ethics: Reproduction, Genetics, and Quality of Life (Oxford University Press, 2012). He was an editor through four editions of Biomedical Ethics (McGraw-Hill), one of the most widely used bioethics anthologies. Currently, DeGrazia is collaborating with Tom Beauchamp on Principles of Animal Research Ethics and with Joe Millum on A Progressive Theory of Bioethics. In addition to books, DeGrazia has published over 120 journal articles, book chapters, review essays, and shorter writings—most of them solo-authored—in such outlets as The Hastings Center Report, Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, and The Baltimore Sun. His research has been supported by major grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Institutes of Health (before he became an employee), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (twice). In 2012, he worked part-time as Senior Advisor to the staff of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. He is currently a member of the editorial boards of Public Affairs Quarterly and The Journal of Applied Ethics. Professor DeGrazia was recently elected an honorary Fellow of the Hastings Center.

Early Career Researcher Award

Lijie Grace Zhang
Associate Professor of Engineering and Applied Science
Dr. Lijie Grace Zhang is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the George Washington University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at Brown University. Dr. Zhang joined GW after finishing her postdoctoral training at Rice University and Harvard Medical School. She is the director of the Bioengineering Laboratory for Nanomedicine and Tissue Engineering at GW. She has received the ASME Sia Nemat-Nasser Early Career Award, NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Young Innovator in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering, John Haddad Young Investigator Award by American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, and Early Career Award from the International Journal of Nanomedicine, etc. Her research interests include 3D/4D bioprinting, nanobiomaterials, complex tissue engineering and breast cancer bone metastasis. Dr. Zhang has authored 3 books, over 113 journal papers, book chapters and conference proceedings, 6 patents and has presented her work at over 290 conferences, universities and institutes. She also serves as the editor of Materials Science and Engineering C-Materials for Biological Applications; associate editor-in-chief of International Journal of Nanomedicine; and associate editor of ASME Journal of Engineering and Science in Medical Diagnostics and Therapy.

Early Career Scholar Award

Yonatan Lupu
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Yonatan Lupu’s research focuses on international relations, human rights, political violence, and international law. Dr. Lupu’s work has appeared in political science journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, International Security, Journal of Politics, International Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, and Journal of Conflict Resolution. Dr. Lupu has also published research in law journals such as American Journal of International Law and Journal of Legal Studies. Dr. Lupu’s research has received funding from the National Science Foundation and awards from the American Political Science Association and Peace Science Society. Dr. Lupu is currently conducting research on the relationship between information technology, political violence, and the ability of authoritarian governments to remain in power, as we all as related research on political violence and public opinion. Before joining the GW faculty, Dr. Lupu was a postdoctoral research associate at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University.  Prior to his academic career, Dr. Lupu was an attorney with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in Washington, DC.