The University of Tulsa has selected Robert Spoo, Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law, for the 2020 Outstanding Researcher Award. The accolade is a lifetime distinction, received only once in an individual’s career. It is intended to honor career-spanning achievements that have been validated in the scholar’s professional field.
Spoo’s interdisciplinary research focuses on authorship, copyrights and the public domain. He is a fellow in the 2020-21 Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University and will explore the courtesy norms that 19th century American publishers established to fill the U.S. copyright vacuum for foreign authors’ works.
His other prestigious awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016 from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Spoo joined the TU College of Law in 2008 after clerking for now-Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (then a judge on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) and practicing law with major firms in New York, Tulsa and San Francisco. Prior to his legal career, he was a tenured English professor and editor of the James Joyce Quarterly at TU.
“Bob is not only a wonderful colleague but also an outstanding scholar, teacher, mentor and researcher,” said Lyn Entzeroth, dean of the TU College of Law. “We are proud of how his extensive research and writing has advanced the fields of law and literature.”
Candidates for the Outstanding Researcher awards were nominated by deans from the Kendall College of Arts and Sciences, College of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Collins College of Business and the Oxley College of Health Sciences. Nominees were selected for their recognition of outstanding research and scholarship achievements based on a single project or a cumulative contribution. Other considerations included pedagogical awards, honors from scholarly societies, grants, publication citation counts or other forms of public recognition.