Five Kansas University faculty members will receive Scholarly Achievement Awards, an honor that recognizes significant scholarly or research achievement by midcareer scholars, KU announced Monday.

A reception for the five winners, hosted by Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, is planned for 5 p.m. May 11 at The Commons in Spooner Hall.

KU’s Scholarly Achievement Awards are given in four academic areas. According to KU, this year’s winners are:

• Christie Befort, associate professor, department of preventive medicine and public health (clinical sciences). She is noted for her work in obesity, especially as it relates to cancer and cancer prevention.

• Wen-Xing Ding, associate professor, department of pharmacy, toxicology and therapeutics (clinical sciences). His research includes identifying adaptive mechanisms to stress as key events that determine the ultimate outcome of cell death or survival.

• William Elliott, associate professor, school of social welfare (social science and professional programs). He researches how children’s savings accounts can offset the effects of poverty among children and adolescents.

• Peter Grund, associate professor, department of English (arts and humanities). He’s known for his research on the history of the English language, particularly the emerging field of historical pragmatics, which examines contextual and cultural variables in language change.

• Greg Rudnick, associate professor, department of physics and astronomy (science, technology and mathematics). Rudnick has conducted influential work in the field of observational astronomy, focusing on the visible properties of galaxies.