The University of Kansas this week announced winners of the Higuchi-KU Endowment Research Achievement Awards, which are given in four categories.

This year’s recipients are:

• Philip Nel, university distinguished professor of English at K-State, in the humanities and social sciences category.

• Randolph Nudo, Marion Merrell Dow Distinguished Professor in Aging and professor and vice chairman of research in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at KU Medical Center, in the biomedical sciences category.

• Christer Aakeröy, university distinguished professor of chemistry at Kansas State University, in the basic sciences category.

• Judith Carta, professor of special education and senior scientist at the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies at KU, in the applied sciences category.

In its announcement KU called the awards, which recognize long-term research accomplishments of faculty at Kansas Board of Regents universities, the state’s “most prestigious recognition for scholarly excellence.”

This is the 35th annual presentation of the awards, established in 1981 by Takeru Higuchi, a distinguished professor at KU from 1967 to 1983, and his wife, Aya. Winners receive a $10,000 award for ongoing research efforts.

Recipients will be honored Dec. 13 in a ceremony at the Kansas Union.