Alumna C. Marjorie Aelion ’80 was named the new dean of the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at UMass Amherst. Aelion was most recently associate dean of the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina.

Maciej Ciesielski, Electrical and Computer Engineering, was awarded an honorary degree by the Université de Bretagne-Sud, Lorient, France, the first honorary degree given by the university.

The International Society of Political Psychology selected Linda R. Tropp, Psychology, associate professor and director of the Peace and Violence concentration, as this year’s winner of its Eric Erikson Early Career Award. Tropp researches intergroup contact, membership in and identification with social groups, interpretations of intergroup relationships, and responses to prejudice and disadvantage.

Douglas Anderton, Sociology, was elected to the Sociological Research Association, an honor that recognizes the most successful researchers in the field. Anderton is director of the Social and Demographic Research Institute and associate dean for Research Affairs in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences where his research focuses on historical and mathematical population studies, statistics, and environmental health and policy.