Michelle Bourgeois, professor of speech and hearing science; Morton O'Kelly, professor of geography; and, Randall Schweller, professor of political science have been selected as Joan N. Huber Faculty Fellows for 2012 in recognition of their first-rate scholarship.

The award is in honor of emeritus professor Joan Huber, who served as dean of the Social and Behavioral Sciences from 1984 to 1992 and as Ohio State's senior vice president for academic affairs and provost until her retirement in 1993. Fellows are nominated by department chairs and receive an annual cash award of $6,000 a year for three years to further their research programs.

Michelle Bourgeois is one of the top national figures in functional approaches to Alzheimer's disease and related dementia. She is part of a group of scientists whose work marks a sea change in how caregivers deal with people who have dementia, focusing on what they can do rather than on what they've lost. With support from the National Institutes of Aging (NIA) and the Alzheimer's Association, Bourgeois is leading the effort to systematically investigate the use of memory aids with persons with dementia residing at home and in institutional settings.

A clinical researcher, Bourgeois has published numerous research articles, training manuals, and books. Her book, Memory Books and Other Graphic Cuing Systems (NY: Health Professions Protocol) was awarded the 2008 National Mature Media Award by Health Professions Press.

In 2010, she was honored by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) with a Fellow of the Association, one of the highest honors ASHA bestows, for outstanding contributions to the discipline of communication sciences and disorders.

Bourgeois earned a BA in linguistics and French from Georgetown University, a Masters in speech and hearing sciences from the University of Washington, and a PhD in communications disorders from the University of Pittsburgh.

Morton O'Kelly is recognized nationally as one of the leading transportation geographers in the U.S. His co-authored textbook on transportation geography is used as a major transportation text in North America.

O'Kelly's dominant research area, in which he is a pioneer, is transportation hub-and-spoke network design, which deals with networks that channel flows between nodes through a set of hubs. Another research focus is spatial interaction, retail location, and trade area analysis. His most recent NSF-funded project focuses on the environmental impact of gateways and hubs in international air transportation.

O'Kelly served as editor of Geographical Analysis: An International Journal of Theoretical Geography, the most eminent journal for spatial analysis. He also served as editorial board member for the journals Location Science, The Professional Geographer, Journal of Retailing, and The Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

O'Kelly served as chair of the Department of Geography from 2003 to 2011 and associate dean of the Social and Behavioral Sciences from 2000 to 2003. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis (CURA), which is emerging as an important urban public policy and economic development resource.

O'Kelly joined the Department of Geography in 1981. He received a BA in geography and economics from University College Dublin. He earned an MA in geography and a PhD in geography from McMaster University.

Randall Schweller focuses on theories of world politics, international security, and strategic studies. He directs the national security studies series at Ohio State's Mershon Center for International Security Studies.

In the past five years, Schweller has published five peer-reviewed articles in leading international relations journals including International Security and Security Studies, which are the top one and two journals in his field respectively. He also published in Global Governance and International Theory both of which are respected field journals.

Schweller is the author of Unanswered Threats: Political Constraints on the Balance of Power (Princeton University Press, 2006) and Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler's Strategy of World Conquest.Across his books and articles, Schweller has addressed numerous issues around the effect different distributions of power have on the operation of the international system; how systems function in a tripolar situation; why balancing breaks down from a different direction; and the the breakdown of clearly defined power polarities in the international system.

Indicative of the standing Schweller enjoys in the field, he sits on the editorial boards of International Security and Security Studies, the top two journals in the security studies field. In addition, he is a co-editor for a series on Asian Security published by Stanford University Press

Schweller joined the Department of Political Science in 1994. He received his PhD in political science from Columbia University.