Awards & More

Issue Date: 
February 10, 2014

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Community Relations John Wilds received the inaugural Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Creating a Just Community Award during the fifth annual Equipoise Brunch on Jan. 24 at the O’Hara Student Center. The event was sponsored by Pitt’s Office of Cross Cultural and Leadership Development.

“Dr. Wilds’ hard work and commitment in helping to create an environment that embraces the diversity of Pitt’s campus and neighboring communities make him an ideal recipient of this award,” said Linda Williams-Moore, director of the Pitt Office of Cross Cultural and Leadership Development within the Office of Student Affairs. “In his daily work, he helps to make the University of Pittsburgh campus a place where individuals feel a sense of belonging.”

Wilds, who joined Pitt in 1985 as director of human resources, contributes to the local community in many ways, including serving as a board member for the Center for Hearing and Deaf Services, Three Rivers Community Foundation, Regional Funding Development Corporation, and the Oakland Business Improvement District. He has taught in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and the School of Information Sciences at Pitt, and at the H. John Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon University.

Founded in 1960, Equipoise is a Pitt organization of faculty, administrators, and staff that provides fellowship and development opportunities within the University for Black professionals.

Charles A. Perfetti, Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and director and senior scientist in Pitt’s Learning Research and Development Center, has been honored with the 2014 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for Text and Discourse.

Perfetti’s research focuses on the cognitive science of language and reading processes, and it is aimed at using a combination of methods to achieve a richer view of language processes.

The Society for Text and Discourse is an international society of researchers investigating all aspects of discourse processing and text analysis. In addition to contributing to a better understanding of such analysis, recipients of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award must also serve as mentors for students, postdoctoral fellows, and colleagues, and are regarded as theorists or spokespeople for the discipline.