Multimedia Archive
2009 Recipients
Three faculty members were awarded the 2009 Kathleen Compton Sherrerd ’54 and John J. F. Sherrerd Prizes for Distinguished Teaching. They are Kimberly Kono, associate professor of East Asian languages and literatures; Beth Powell, lecturer in psychology; and Kate Queeney, associate professor of chemistry.
Kimberly
Kono
Kimberly Kono joined the college’s Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
in 2001 after completing her undergraduate, master's and doctoral studies at the University of
California, Berkeley. At Smith, she teaches courses on modern Japanese literature and language.
Her course “Constructions of Gender in Modern Japanese Women’s Writing,” for
example, explores the intersections of gender and national identity in selected poetry, fiction
and memoirs by Japanese women throughout the 20th Century. Kono is on the advisory committees for
the Program in East Asian Studies and the Program for the Study of Women and Gender. Her book Romantic
and Familial Love in Japanese Colonial Literature is forthcoming from Palgrave. She was the
recipient of a Picker Fellowship at Smith in 2003. In 2004-05 she taught at Cornell University
as a Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching-Research Fellow.
Beth
Powell
Beth Powell has taught at Smith for 29 years as a member of the psychology department
and neuroscience program, but the college has always been part of her life. Powell is the daughter
of Anne Hall Powell (Anne Marie Hall) ’50, as well as a member of the Smith class of 1978,
and the mother of Amanda Anderson ’09J. Powell earned her masters and doctoral degrees nearby
at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. At Smith she teaches courses in psychology and neuroscience
research methods, physiology of behavior, psychopharmacology, and a seminar in neuroscience, ethics,
and policy. She has also served as a visiting lecturer at the University of Massachusetts and taught
for 11 years in a PsyD program at Antioch/New England College. Powell’s areas of interest
include the biological basis of clinical disorders and treatment of memory disorders such as Alzheimer’s
disease.
Kate
Queeney
Kate Queeney joined the Smith Department of Chemistry in 2000 after completing undergraduate
studies at Williams College, earning her doctoral degree in physical chemistry at Harvard University,
and following two years as a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Optical Physics at Lucent
Technologies. Queeney’s research currently focuses on silicon surface chemistry and the adsorption
of biomolecules to solid surfaces. At Smith, she teaches courses in general and physical chemistry,
instrumental analysis and materials chemistry. Queeney was the recipient of a Faculty Early Career
Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation in 2004, an honor among the most
prestigious for new faculty members. Queeney currently serves as faculty director of advising at
Smith and since 2007 has co-directed the college’s AEMES (Achieving Excellence in Mathematics,
Engineering and Sciences) Program.
