WFU awards and recognitions briefs

The WFU Awards and Recognitions briefs celebrate milestones of faculty, staff and students at Wake Forest.

Wake Forest’s Soriano appointed as associate provost
Christina Soriano, director of dance and associate professor in the department of theatre and dance, has been appointed as the inaugural associate provost for arts and interdisciplinary initiatives. The position is intended to strengthen and further develop interdisciplinary partnerships across the University, while enhancing the visibility of the arts at and beyond Wake Forest.

In addition to creating new works for the Wake Forest Dance Company each year, Soriano’s wide-ranging interests and expertise have led her to identify nationally recognized points of connection between art and health. Since 2012, she has taught a community dance class for Parkinson’s patients, underpinning her work to define the relationship between improvisational dance, mobility, balance and neurodegenerative disease. This research has received funding from the National Parkinson Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of N.C. and the National Institutes of Health and has been profiled in local and national news outlets.

Each year, Soriano helps organize the annual interdisciplinary symposium, Aging Re-Imagined (May 3-4), which brings together the work of artists and scientists around the topic of Healthy Aging. She also serves on the executive committee of IPLACe (Interdisciplinary Performance and Liberal Arts Center). She joined the Wake Forest theatre and dance faculty in 2006 and has served as director of the dance program since 2016.

WFU professor appointed associate dean for continuing studies
Wake Forest University professor Thomas Frank has been appointed associate dean for continuing studies in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1. Frank will also act as director for the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) Program and the Lifelong Learning Program. Frank joined the Wake Forest faculty in 2010 and served as chair of the department of history from 2014-17.

WFU student receives Pulitzer Center fellowship
The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting has awarded a fellowship to Wake Forest University junior Kiley Price. The $3,000 grant will enable her to travel to Thailand in May to research the role and impact of activist Buddhists in the Thai environmental movement, which seeks to strike a better balance between the country’s economic growth and the water pollution, air pollution and deforestation that go along with it.

When Price, a biology major, returns from her reporting in Thailand, she will continue with a 10-week internship at World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C. The journalism program at Wake Forest is a member of the Pulitzer Center’s Campus Consortium, which brings foreign correspondents to campus and provides funding for the fellowships. Price is the University’s eighth fellowship recipient.