The National Education Association has announced that UALR Professor Johanna Miller Lewis will receive the associate’s Ellison Onizuka Award at the group’s national conference in July for her project, “Life Interrupted,” produced by UALR’s Public History Program.

The exhibit, “Life Interrupted: The Japanese American Experience in World War II Arkansas,” produced several art exhibits, school curricula, a Public Broadcasting System film, and a poignant reunion of camp veterans who visited the site of the camps.

Miller-Lewis produced the project in partnership with the Japanese American National Museum of Los Angeles with major funding provided by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.

The project examines the United States government’s program of ordering Japanese Americans into war relocation camps in the wake of the Empire of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

NEA’s Onizuka Memorial Award is presented for distinguished leadership in education and honors an individual whose activities have made significant improvements in educational opportunities and advanced the achievement of equal opportunity for Asian and Pacific Islanders.

The Ellison S. Onizuka Memorial Award honors the first Asian/Pacific Islander chosen by NASA for the astronaut program. Onizuka (1946-1986) was a Japanese American aerospace engineer and was serving as a mission specialist on the space shuttle Challenger when it exploded on January 28, 1986, killing all aboard.