2019 GW OVPR Faculty Award Recipients

2019 Recipients

Distinguished Researcher Award

Stuart Licht
Professor of Chemistry
Dr. Licht’s research focuses on providing a technological solution to climate change. The research introduces and scales-up a new chemistry to transform the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the strongest material known, carbon nanotubes. His C2CNT (CO2to CNT) team is currently competing as a finalist in the Carbon XPrize competition to form the most valuable product from carbon dioxide and avert the global warming crisis facing our planet. Dr. Licht is an electrochemist with ~400 papers and patents focused on sustainability. He served as a program director in the Chemistry Division of the US National Science Foundation, is a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society, and recipient of industry and societal research awards. Dr. Licht helped establish fundamental chemical principles of the field of photoelectrochemistry as well as some of the highest efficiency solar cells. His STEP (solar thermal electrochemical process) chemistries have led to the demonstration of efficient solar fuels from sunlight, air and water, as well as STEP CO2-free syntheses of ammonia, iron and steel, cement and organics. His research group has helped pioneer the principals of multiple electron per molecule energy storage, including the unusual 11 electron VB2, the "super-iron," and the molten air battery. Licht has broadened the foundation of understanding of environmental electrochemical phenomena ranging from carbon capture, to generation/collection microelectrochemistry, chemical speciation, analytical chemistry, energy conversion and water purification.

Distinguished Scholar Award

Charles Glaser
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs
Dr. Glaser is director of the Elliott School's Institute for Security and Conflict Studies. His research focuses on international relations theory, including the security dilemma, defensive realism, and arms races; and on international security policy, including U.S. policy toward China, energy security, and U.S. nuclear weapons policy. Dr. Glaser holds a Ph.D. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a B.S. in physics from MIT, and an M.A. in physics and M.P.P. from Harvard. Before joining the George Washington University, Dr. Glaser was the Emmett Dedmon Professor of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. His books include Rational Theory of International Politics (2010) and Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy (1990). In 2018 he was awarded the International Studies Association, Security Studies Section, Distinguished Scholar Award for lifetime achievement in research and mentoring.

Early Career Researcher Award

Megan Leftwich
Associate Professor of Engineering and Applied Science
Dr. Leftwich holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University and a B.S.E. degree from Duke University. Prior to joining GW, she was the Agnew National Security Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Lab from 2010 to 2012. Her current research interests include the fluid dynamics of rotating airfoils, high performance jetting for aquatic locomotion, unsteady activation for undulatory propulsion, and the fluid dynamics of human birth. Dr. Leftwich has a deep interest in diversity in technical fields and STEM education from the first year through the Ph.D. She is an Office of Naval Research 2017 Young Investigator Award Recipient. Additionally, she is the winner of the 2018 SEAS Dean’s Faculty Recognition Award, the 2017 SEAS Outstanding Young Researcher Award and the 2016 SEAS Outstanding Young Teacher Award. Dr. Leftwich received an ONR Summer Research Faculty Fellowship in both 2015 and 2016. Her work on unsteady propulsion has been profiled in over 20 popular media venues including: Wired, the Smithsonian Magazine, CNN’s Great Big Story and the New York Times.

Early Career Scholar Award

Christopher Warshaw
Assistant Professor of American Politics
Dr. Warshaw's research focuses on whether the government represents the preferences of its citizens and how the influence of the mass public varies across institutional contexts and over time. In Dr. Warshaw's research, he evaluates political representation in city and state governments in the United States, as well as in the U.S. Congress. He also examines the effects of political institutions, such as gerrymandering and direct democracy, on the political process. His work has been published in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, the Annual Review of Political Science, Political Analysis, Political Science Research and Methods, the British Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, Public Choice, the Election Law Journal, Nature Energy, and edited volumes from Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press. He is currently working on a book called Dynamic Democracy: Citizens, Parties, and Policymaking in the American States, 1936–2016, which will be published by the University of Chicago Press.

Research Mentorship Award

Cynthia McClintock
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs
Dr. McClintock has been honored to support the academic and professional development of GW students for many years. She has co-authored work with Ph.D. students, advised scores of Ph.D. dissertations and M.A. and B.A. theses, and supported more than one hundred students in their quests for academic and professional positions. In 2018, she won the Harry Harding Teaching Prize from the Elliott School. Her research focuses on Latin American politics. She is the author of Electoral Rules and Democracy in Latin America (Oxford University Press, 2018), Revolutionary Movements in Latin America: El Salvador’s FMLN and Peru’s Shining Path (U.S. Institute of Peace, 1998), and Peasant Cooperatives and Political Change in Peru (Princeton University Press, 1981). She is also the co-editor of The Peruvian Experiment Reconsidered (Princeton University Press, 1983) and co-author of The United States and Peru: Cooperation at a Cost (Routledge, 2003). Her articles and book chapters number more than seventy and have been published in World Politics, Comparative Politics, Foreign Affairs, and the Journal of Democracy, among many other journals. She was the president of the Latin American Studies Association in 1994-95, a member of the Council of the American Political Science Association (APSA) in 1999-2000, and Chair of APSA’s Section on Comparative Democratization in 2003-05. Awarded a Fulbright grant, she taught at the Catholic University in Peru in 1987, and in 2008 received the Orden del Sol del Perú (Order of the Sun of Peru, awarded by the Peruvian state for extraordinary contributions to Peru). She has appeared on many major news programs, including the Diane Rehm Show and the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and has testified before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives.