Below are the descriptions from the last 3 years announcing Mary Ann Dzuback Award. Stay tuned for information on this year’s winner soon!

SuSusan Frelich Appleton, 2024

The Association for Women Faculty is delighted to honor Susan Frelich Appleton with this year’s Mary Ann Dzuback award, which is named in honor of the founder of AWF and is given to a faculty member who has advocated strongly for gender equity.  

Susan Frelich Appleton, the Lemma Barkeloo & Phoebe Couzins Professor of Law, is a nationally known expert in family law and feminist legal theory. Her research, scholarship, and teaching address reproductive justice, parentage, gender, sexualities, and public assistance for families.

Co-author of six editions of a family law casebook, Professor Appleton most recently published a new edition of a casebook entitled Families Under Construction: Parentage, Adoption and Assisted Reproduction (2d ed. 2021).  She has published extensively on family law matters and feminist legal theory in law reviews and scholarly collections. In 2021, she received the inaugural award for outstanding contributions and achievements in the field from the AALS Section on Family & Juvenile Law, and in 2018, she received a Dukeminier Award from UCLA’s Williams Institute, which recognizes the best publications on sexual orientation and gender identity law. An active member of the American Law Institute (ALI), she held the position of Secretary of the Institute (2004-13), has served on its Council (since 1994), and participates as an Adviser on several ALI projects, including the revision of the Model Penal Code’s provisions on sexual assault and the Restatement of the Law of Children and the Law. She has lectured and presented papers across the U.S. and abroad, including in Rome, Berlin, Prague, Padua, Herzliya (Israel), and Shanghai.

Professor Appleton has received Washington University’s Distinguished Faculty Award and the law school’s Triennial Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award. At the law school, she served as vice dean (2013-14) and associate dean of faculty (1998-2003). In 2010-12, she served as Washington University’s first Ombuds, facilitating the informal resolution or management of faculty-related conflicts or concerns on the Danforth Campus. 

Adrienne Davis, 2023

We are delighted to present the 2023 Mary Ann Dzuback award, which is for a faculty member who has advocated strongly for gender equity.  She holds a dual appointment as the William M. Van Cleve Professor in the School of Law and Professor of Organizational Behavior in Olin Business School. She also holds courtesy appointments in the departments of African and African-American Studies, History, Sociology, and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She served as the Vice Provost for Faculty and Institutional Diversity from 2010 to 2021. From 2015 until 2017 she chaired the University’s Commission on Diversity and Inclusion, which was charged with designing a university-wide plan for diversity. Adrienne Davis has left an indelible mark on WashU, our faculty, our students, and our community.  She has mentored and uplifted many of us.  We are delighted to present her with this award.

Tonya Edmond, 2022

The 2022 Mary Ann Dzuback award honors Tonya Edmond; this award is for a faculty member who has advocated strongly for gender equity.  Tonya is the Interim Co-Dean of the Brown School and former president of AWF.  Her tireless leadership has made WashU a better place, and we are delighted for colleagues and friends to watch her accept this award.