UB honors exceptional scholars, innovative teachers

Twelve of UB’s best and brightest teachers and researchers have been named recipients of the university’s 2019 Exceptional Scholar and Teaching Innovation Awards.

All will be honored at the annual Celebration of Faculty/Staff Excellence, to be held in the fall.

The Exceptional Scholars Award honors faculty members for their outstanding research performance at different stages of their careers. There are two awards: Sustained Achievement Awards for senior scholars and Young Investigator Awards for untenured scholars who received their terminal degree within the past eight years. Both awards recognize work that has “garnered public and/or professional accolades beyond the norm.”

Sustained Achievement recipients are selected based on their body of work over a number of years. The award is not meant to serve as a lifetime achievement honor, but rather as recognition for outstanding performance in a recent segment of a scholar’s career.

Recipients for 2019 are Paul DesJardin, professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Bing Gong, professor, Department of Chemistry; Josep Jornet, associate professor, Department of Electrical Engineering; Jeffrey Lackner, professor, Department of Medicine; Jun Qu, professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Vaikuntanath Samudrala, professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics; and Jun Zhuang, professor, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

The Young Investigator Award is presented to untenured researchers whose work has garnered universal acclaim or been completed under the auspices of a prestigious fellowship grant.

Recipients for 2019 are James Chen, assistant professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; and Shi Li, assistant professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

UB’s Teaching Innovation Award recognizes faculty members who have used new methods and approaches teaching that have had a demonstrable effect on enhancing student-learning outcomes, including innovative uses of educational technology. All UB faculty members are eligible for the award.

Recipients for 2019 are Jason Armstrong, associate professor of teaching, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; James Berry, professor, Department of Biological Sciences; and Ramtin Sadid-Zadeh, assistant professor, Department of Restorative Dentistry.