Accolades: Professors Honored for Research Contributions

Accolades is an occasional News Center feature that highlights recent accomplishments of UT Dallas faculty and students. To submit items for consideration, contact your school’s communication manager.

Callier Educator Earns Award for Language Research

Dr. Anne van Kleeck has been selected to receive the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA) Honors of the Association award.

The award recognizes members for their distinguished contribution to the discipline of communication sciences and disorders, and is the highest honor bestowed by ASHA. Van Kleeck will receive the honor in November at the ASHA 2018 Convention in Boston.

“We are proud but not at all surprised to learn of Anne’s recognition by her colleagues for her long-term and continuing contributions to the field of communication sciences and disorders,” said Dr. James Bartlett, interim dean of the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences and Ashbel Smith Professor.

Van Kleeck, who is based at the Callier Center for Communication Disorders, is one of the foremost researchers of preschoolers’ academic language skills, which are foundational for later reading comprehension and more general academic success.

She also has pioneered the study of how cultural variations in parental interactions potentially affect children’s language learning.

Dr. John Locke, professor of linguistics and language science at the City University of New York, nominated van Kleeck for the award. Locke said he has been consistently impressed by her research and leadership, which he said have manifestly reshaped the field.

“As a researcher and writer, Anne has exerted a profound effect on her profession and on educational practices,” he said. “Her record of activity and accomplishment indicates that she has enhanced and favorably influenced the direction of our profession.”

Van Kleeck said she is extremely grateful for the honor.

“With the goal of helping children develop their language skills so they can reach their optimal potential, I could not have had a more interesting or important set of problems on which to focus my passions,” she said.

Jindal School Professor Elected Fellow of the Academy of International Business

Dr. Eric W.K. Tsang, the Dallas World Salute Distinguished Professor in Global Strategy in the Naveen Jindal School of Management, was recently elected a Fellow of the Academy of International Business (AIB).

AIB Fellows are a select group of distinguished academy members recognized for either their outstanding scholarly contributions to the field of international business or their significant contributions to the academy.

Tsang’s research interests go beyond international business. He also is a leading scholar in applying philosophy to solve methodological problems related to assumption, explanation, generalization, ontology, replication and theory testing.

“In this sense, I am an ‘outlier’ among the fellows,” Tsang said.

Tsang was a corporate banker at HSBC in Hong Kong when he decided to pursue a different career path. He left HSBC to work at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, where he was an associate professor. After deciding to join academia, he attended the University of Cambridge, where he earned his PhD in management in 1997. He taught at Wayne State University before arriving at UT Dallas in 2007.

Currently an editorial board member of eight academic journals, Tsang also serves as deputy editor-in-chief of Management and Organization and Review.