Two SC&I faculty members have been named recipients of Rutgers University’s prestigious 2024-2025 Universitywide Faculty Year-End Excellence Awards.

SC&I Professor of Journalism and Media Studies and of History David Greenberg has been awarded a Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research. The award “honors tenured faculty members who have made distinguished research contributions to their discipline and/or society at large.”

Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies Caitlin Petre has been named a recipient of the Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching, “given annually to tenured faculty members in recognition of outstanding service in stimulating and guiding the intellectual development of students at Rutgers University.”

Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway and Executive Vice President Prabhas Moghe announced the awards recipients to the Rutgers community on April 23, 2025.

This year 30 Rutgers faculty members received recognition in eight award categories, and the recipients were selected by their colleagues. The awardees represent the University’s four academic units: Rutgers University–Camden; Rutgers University–Newark; Rutgers University–New Brunswick; and Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (Rutgers Health).

“I'm very grateful to all of my colleagues, to the university leaders, and to others at Rutgers who selected me for this award,” Greenberg said. “I’ve always believed that there doesn’t have to be a trade-off between doing serious, important scholarship and presenting it in ways that general readers can enjoy and appreciate. I take this award as validation of that belief, as a vote of confidence in my efforts to write books that matter both to my fellow historians and to the public.”  

Petre said, “I’m beyond honored to receive this award and grateful to my colleagues at the School of Communication & Information for nominating me and supporting my teaching. I’m also profoundly appreciative of my Rutgers students at the undergraduate, Masters, and Ph.D. levels. Pretty much everything I know about effective teaching, I’ve learned from working with them.”

Greenberg and Petre will receive commemorative certificates and honorariums at a reception to be held on May 12, 2025.

Greenberg is a historian of American political and cultural history. He is the author of the books "John Lewis: A Life" (2024); "Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency" (2016); "Calvin Coolidge" (2006); and "Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image" (2003). He is a frequent commentator in the national news media on contemporary politics and public affairs. He writes about history, politics, and media for a variety of scholarly and popular publications.

Petre studies the social processes behind the digital datasets and algorithms that increasingly govern the contemporary world. Using qualitative research methods such as ethnographic observation and in-depth interviewing, she maps the complex relationships between digital analytics, the social actors who create them, and the established experts who make use of them. Petre’s book, “All the News That’s Fit to Click” (2021), is a behind-the-scenes look at how performance analytics are transforming the work of journalism.

Learn more about the Journalism and Media Studies Department at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information on the website.