ANN ARBOR—Four University of Michigan faculty were among 186 winners of the Guggenheim Fellowships, which are awarded for distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.

The U-M fellows include Kent Berridge, psychology professor; Susan Botti, a composer and assistant professor of music composition; Judith Irvine, anthropology professor; and Gary Saxonhouse, economics professor.

The 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship winners include artists, scholars, and scientists selected from over 3,000 applicants for awards totaling more than $7.1 million. Since 1925, the Foundation has granted almost $240 million in Fellowships to more than 15,500 individuals.

Berridge said the fellowship is a “surprising stroke of good fortune” that will support a sabbatical yearlong interaction with colleagues at Cambridge University in England. The goal is to sharpen their conceptual thinking about the psychology and neurobiology of reward, he said. His research tries to answer questions like: How is pleasure generated in the brain? What are the neural bases of reward wanting and liking? How are rewards learned? How do brain motivation systems work?

“I’m delighted and grateful to the Guggenheim Foundation—and to my Michigan colleagues and students for our collaborative work together that made my Guggenheim application successful,” he said.

Botti will spend next year in residence at the American Academy in Rome thanks largely to the Guggenheim and support from the University. She will compose vocal chamber works and conduct research.

“I am thrilled and honored to be awarded a Guggenheim fellowship,” she said, noting she also received the Rome Prize in Music Composition this year. “It all feels somewhat unreal at this point—truly an idyllic opportunity.”

Irvine said she hopes to complete a draft of a book on the politics of colonial-era studies of sub-Saharan African languages (“Colonizing African Languages: Ideologies of Language, Politics of Empire”). In addition, she wants to make progress on a co-authored book on the concept of “language ideology.” “To receive a Guggenheim Fellowship is an absolutely wonderful gift,” Irvine said. “I feel enormously honored by the recognition, and privileged to have the opportunity for a year’s unfettered work on the projects that especially fascinate me.”

Saxonhouse will use his fellowship to study “The Evolution of Labor Standards in Japan: Human Rights, Scientific Management, and International Economic Conflict.” “This award is quite wonderful,” said Saxonhouse. “I am very gratified by the Guggenheim Foundation’s high evaluation of my past work, and by its confidence in the promise of my ongoing research.”

Related links:

The complete list of 2005 fellows

Berridge

Botti

Saxonhouse

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The complete list of 2005 fellowsBerridgeBottiSaxonhouse