 |
 |
 |
Professor Melosi Receives UH's Highest Honor
Posted: August 22, 2005
Martin Melosi, the Distinguished University Professor of History and the Director of the Center for Public History, recently received the Esther Farfel Award, the highest honor accorded to a University of Houston faculty member. The Farfel Award, a symbol of career excellence, is based on three criteria: the significance and international impact of the candidate’s research; his or her outstanding teaching ability; and his or her exemplary service to the University, the profession, and the community. Please see this link for an interview with Dr. Melosi regarding the Farfel Award.
Melosi's areas of research interest include urban environmental history, city services and urban technology, environmental racism, environmental politics, and energy history. His published work covers these areas as well as topics in American diplomatic history, public history, and the history of technology. For example, the multiple-award-winning The Sanitary City (Johns Hopkins, 2000) treated the development of water supply, wastewater, and solid waste systems in the United States from colonial times to the present. Among many other books and articles, Dr. Melosi’s publications include: Coping with Abundance (Knopf, 1985); Thomas A. Edison and the Modernization of America (Addison, Wesley Longman, 1990); Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment (Pittsburgh, 2001); Urban Public Policy: Historical Modes and Methods (Penn State, 1993) (Editor and contributor); Garbage in the Cities (Texas A&M, 1981); Pollution and Reform in American Cities (Texas, 1980) (Editor and contributor); and The Shadow of Pearl Harbor (Texas A&M, 1977; 2nd print., 1978).
Historians from around the world offer high praise for Dr. Melosi’s groundbreaking work. Joel Tarr, the Richard S. Caliguiri Professor of Urban and Environmental History and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, writes, "Not many historians can be called "path setting," but Melosi fully deserves the title - he is a creative and energetic scholar and a pioneer in urban environmental history. . . [He] is a distinguished and prizewinning senior scholar who has brought great distinction to the University of Houston."
Carolyn Merchant, the Chancellor’s Professor of Environmental History, Philosophy, and Ethics at the University of California, Berkeley, adds, "(Professor Melosi) is an internationally known scholar of the history of the urban sanitation movement and of efforts to remove and treat refuse and hazardous wastes in the United States. . . His research on the urban environment has been foundational in establishing both the texture and the influence of that environment in the fields of environmental history, the history of technology, and urban studies."
David E. Nye, a professor of American Studies from Denmark on leave at the University of Warwick, also speaks to the worldwide recognition and important practical applications of Dr. Melosi’s work. "...there really is no one more eminent in his field of specialization -- I cannot think of anyone if the US or Europe who has produced a work as important as The Sanitary City. It is a massive achievement, which richly deserves the many prizes it won. . . Moreover, the questions he engages are of vital importance for urban health and safety, making him that rarest of all historians: one whose work has policy implications... In short, in Martin Melosi, your university has a scholar of the very first rank, an international figure, whose work has lasting import."
Mark Rose, a Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University, mentions that he was “honored” to write in support of Dr. Melosi’s nomination for the Farfel Award. Rose comments on the significance of Melosi’s research. "Melosi, Joel Tarr, and a few others have brought a... larger question front and center. Rather than treating nature simply as the recipient of human action, or as its victim, urban and environmental historians have sought to understand the multiple influences of human habitation on urban land, air, and water, and the reciprocal influence of "nature" on the urban built environment and its residents. . . In his brilliant The Sanitary City, Martin Melosi has written an intellectual and technologically-oriented account of the efforts of urban leaders to foster control of the built environment and enhance the health of citizens. Melosi develops themes that are at once original and profoundly sophisticated.... This clearly written and thoroughly-researched book will serve for the next decade and longer, I predict, as our standard, most reliable, most-often-cited, and most regularly assigned history of urban infrastructure and public health. I can identify no higher praise."
The Sanitary City received four major book prizes from the American Society for Environmental History, the Urban History Association, the Society for History of Technology, and the Public Works Historical Society.
Donald Worster, the Joyce and Elizabeth Hall Professor of U.S. History and Environmental Studies at the University of Kansas, similarly recognizes the important directions Melosi’s research has followed. “An interest in the urban environment has naturally led Marty toward the environmental justice movement, which sees environmental problems as deeply rooted in prejudicial attitudes about race and class. Beyond these moral and intellectual contributions, Marty is widely liked and appreciated for his great service to the field and his role in developing graduate studies at the University of Houston."
Professor Worster’s last comments are particularly apt given the Farfel Award Committee’s emphasis on teaching and service as well as research. “Simply put, I owe my scholarly interests, my teaching skills, and my professional career to Professor Melosi,” writes Charles Closmann, who received his Ph.D. in history at UH and now teaches at the University of North Florida. “Martin Melosi has inspired me to work very hard, to challenge myself constantly, and to demand the same from my students.”
Elizabeth Blum, another alumnus of the UH history program and an assistant professor at Troy State University, adds, “In addition to learning the benefits of his teaching methods and philosophies, he was always generous with his time to students… He would go out of his way to make each of us feel a part of the academic community… He continues to be accessible, kind, and very generous to his students.” Teresa Tomkins-Walsh, a Ph.D. candidate in history at UH, concludes, “Dr. Melosi combines masterly command of his discipline with an ability to communicate his knowledge effectively and stimulate learning. He also exhibits a willingness to introduce his students into his professional world. Each of these attributes is an admirable quality in an academic, but their fusion in a single individual is remarkably rare.”
Finally, Dr. Melosi’s service to his department, his university, his profession, and his community is so extensive as to defy inclusion in this limited space. Susan Kellogg, Chair of the UH history department, observes, “Marty stands out for the importance of his research, the high level of scholarly productivity he has maintained throughout his career, his excellent teaching, and his exemplary service within and beyond the university.” Marty's colleagues in the history department salute him for this award and for his storied career.
<< Previous Announcement
Next Announcement >>
Announcement Archives
