About the CLASS Distinguished Faculty Award
The CLASS Distinguished Faculty Award was established in 2019 by Antonio D. Tillis, Ph.D., Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and M.D. Anderson Professor in Hispanic Studies.
This award honors senior faculty with internationally recognized bodies of scholarship or creative output.
CLASS Distinguished Faculty Award recipients also exhibit the promise of continued excellence. Candidates for this award must have achieved preeminence in their field through stellar research and scholarship.
Funding for the award provided by the generosity of an anonymous donor, supporter, and friend of CLASS.
Alessandro Carrera, Ph.D.
Department of Modern and Classical Languages
Moores Professor, Director of Italian Studies and Graduate Director of World Cultures and Literatures
Alessandro Carrera joined the Department of Modern and Classical Languages in 2001 and attained the rank of full professor in 2009. Carrera is a leading scholar of Italian literature, film, and music. He has authored numerous books and scholarly articles, including 2019’s “Fellini’s Eternal Rome: Paganism and Christianity in the Films of Federico Fellini,” for which he won the prestigious Flaiano Prize.
In addition to his scholarly output, Carrera has earned international acclaim for his poetry and fiction. In 2009, Carrera was named a Knight of the Star Order of the Italian Solidarity by the former President of Italy for his work in promoting Italian culture abroad. In 2012, he received the Distinguished Citizen Award from the city of Lodi, Italy. Carrera earned a 2015 Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Houston.
Carrera holds a Ph.D. by publications in music, humanities, and media from the University of Huddersfield in England and a Laurea in Filosofia from the Università degli Studi in Milan, Italy.
Billy Hawkins, Ph.D.
Department of Health and Human Performance
Associate Dean, Student and Faculty Success and Professor
Billy Hawkins joined the Department of Health and Human Performance as a full professor in 2016 and was appointed Associate Dean for Student and Faculty Success in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in 2019.
Hawkins is an influential scholar whose research interests involve the intersection of sport, race and higher education. Hawkins has authored six books, including 2010’s “The New Plantation: Black Athletes, College Sports, and Predominantly White NCAA Institutions.” He has delivered numerous research presentations at regional, national, and international scientific meetings, establishing himself as a thought leader in U.S. collegiate athletics. Hawkins has served in leadership roles for the NCAA Forum for the Scholarly Study of Intercollegiate Athletics in Higher Education as well as the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport. He has written editorials for The New York Times and appeared in television interviews on ESPN, CNN, and various local news networks.
Hawkins holds a Ph.D. in health and sport studies from the University of Iowa, an M.S. in exercise and sport science from the University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse, and a B.A. in business administration from Webber College.
Chinhui Juhn, Ph.D.
Department of Economics
Henry Graham Professor of Economics
Chinhui Juhn joined the Department of Economics in 1991 and attained the rank of full professor in 2002.
Juhn is an internationally renowned expert in labor economics and income inequality. The public discussion of wage inequality that intensified after the 2008 financial crisis was an outgrowth of Juhn’s research and publications. Her work has considered the effects of trade, female participation in the workforce, childbearing, and many other variables on earnings gaps in the global economy. Her papers have garnered over 7,000 citations throughout her career. Juhn’s work has appeared in top publications such as The Quarterly Journal of Economics and The Journal of Political Economy.
Juhn served as an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and was part of the Economics Review Panel for the National Science Foundation. She also served in the prestigious Council of Economic Advisors to the White House. She has held prestigious editorial positions and will be a co-editor of the American Economic Review in the Fall.
Juhn holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in economics from Yale University.