SUNY Cortland Professor Tiantian Zheng Receives SUNY Chancellor's Award

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Tiantian Zheng

CORTLAND, NY (05/16/2012)(readMedia)-- Tiantian Zheng, a professor of sociology/anthropology at SUNY Cortland, was presented a prestigious State University of New York Chancellor's Award for Excellence during the 2012 Undergraduate Commencement on Saturday, May 12, in the Park Center.

Zheng received a Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities.

The Chancellor's Awards are conferred to provide system-wide recognition for consistently superior professional achievement and to encourage the pursuit of excellence at all 64 SUNY campuses. Each campus president submits nominations, which are reviewed by the SUNY Committee on Awards.

Zheng becomes the 11th SUNY Cortland faculty member to receive the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, which recognizes her for the reach, scope, impact, and the sheer volume of her academic body of work on health, related women's issues, sexuality, social inequality and human rights. In less than a decade, Zheng has become a major scholar in her field.

Zheng joined SUNY Cortland in 2003 as an assistant professor, was promoted to the rank of associate professor in 2007 and to professor in 2010.

Her ethnographic work examines the nexus of state power, entrepreneurial masculinity and the influx of rural migrant women in a post-socialist setting. These research areas have narrowed specifically on the interaction of gender politics, nationalism and state power as they pertain to birth control, disease control - especially HIV/AIDS and STDs - and control over women's bodies as these have played out in post-socialist China.

Zheng is the author of four scholarly books, two of which have won book awards. Her most important piece of work to date is her 2009 text, Red Lights: The Lives of Sex Workers in Postsocialist China (University of Minnesota Press). That volume won the 2010 Sara Whaley Book Award from the National Women's Studies Association and has been widely reviewed, praised, and discussed.

Her written scholarship also encompasses the editorial coordination of a journal issue, 18 articles published in refereed journals, 18 book chapters, 16 book reviews and 62 academic papers.

Zheng has delivered more than 30 presentations on her research in the U.S. and abroad.

She earned a bachelor's degree from Bo Hai University in China, a master of arts from Dalian University in China, and master of philosophy and doctor of philosophy degrees from Yale University.

Three other SUNY Cortland faculty and administrators received Chancellor's Awards at the graduation exercises. Jeffrey J. Walkuski, associate professor of physical education, was presented a Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Faculty Service. Melony Warwick, secretary II in the Division of Institutional Advancement, received a Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Classified Service. Julian H. Wright, director of recreational sports, was honored with a Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Professional Service.

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