Sofiya Alhassan Receives Distinguished Career Award from Faculty Women of Color in the Academy at UMass Amherst
Sofiya Alhassan, associate dean for inclusion and engagement with the UMass Amherst Graduate School and professor in the Department of Kinesiology, recently received the 2024 Zenobia L. Hikes Distinguished Career Award from the Faculty Women of Color in the Academy (FWCA) during the organization’s national conference held April 11-14 in Arlington, Virginia.
“This award means a lot to me because it is a recognition of my scholarly work and the work I do to mentor both graduate students and faculty of color, nationally and here at UMass,” says Alhassan, who mentors several students and faculty of color across the UMass campus.
Named for the former vice president of student affairs at Virginia Tech, the Zenobia L. Hikes Award recognizes a woman of color with a distinguished career in higher education demonstrated by scholarly endeavors or administrative and professional accomplishments. Recipients are also engaged members of their campus and community, with a history of advancing the development of women of color as they pursue their education and prepare for careers in the academy and beyond.
“This award is a wonderful but not unexpected recognition, given what we know about Sofiya’s accomplishments in her field of research and the many significant contributions to the campus community,” says Richard van Emmerik, professor and chair in the Department of Kinesiology.
Since joining the UMass Amherst faculty in 2007, Alhassan has served as the graduate program director of the kinesiology department, an ADVANCE Faculty Fellow and a scholar for the Center for Research on Families. Nationally, she is a fellow of the National Academy of Kinesiology and has served on the board of trustees of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), where she is a member of several committees and was previously a Leadership and Diversity Fellow. She also serves as an editor of the Journal of Physical Activity and Health.