UB to recognize faculty, staff excellence

Distinguished UB faculty and staff will take center stage Oct. 26 at the 14th annual Celebration of Faculty and Staff Excellence.

This celebration, which will be held in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus, recognizes the work and achievement of UB faculty and staff in research, teaching and service.

A separate ceremony recognizing student achievement will be held in the spring.

The ceremony for faculty and staff will begin 3:30 p.m. with a welcome from President Satish K. Tripathi and remarks by Charles F. Zukoski, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. The event also will feature a screening of an excerpt from “Sing for Me,” a film by Sama Waham, visiting assistant professor in the Department of Media Study, that earned the Best Film Award for Long Documentaries at the Alexandria International Film Festival.

The focal point of the event will be the recognition of faculty and staff members who received distinguished honors and awards during 2017. Honorees include those who have been named SUNY Distinguished Professors, UB Distinguished Professors, UB Exceptional Scholars and UB Teaching Innovators, as well as recipients of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence.

Also being honored are the recipients of two UB mentoring rewards: the UB Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring Award and the UB President Emeritus and Mrs. Meyerson Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring.

In addition, 17 faculty members will be honored for 50 years of service to the university.

A reception will follow the ceremony in the Slee lobby.

The honorees

Seventeen faculty and staff members recently achieved the milestone of completing 50 years of service to UB. They are:

• Angela M. Brucklier, University Libraries.
• Carl Dennis, professor emeritus and artist-in-residence, Department of English.
• Jeremy D. Finn, SUNY Distinguished Professor and chair, Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology.
• Thomas Flanagan, professor emeritus of microbiology and immunology.
• Shigeji Fujita, professor emeritus of physics.
• Chester A. Glomski, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences.
• Evelyn Hufford, circulation supervisor, University Libraries.
• William R. Kinkel, professor emeritus of neurology.
• Stephen G. Margolis, professor emeritus of electrical engineering.
• John Peradotto, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus of Classics.
• Gerald R. Rising, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus of Learning and Instruction.
• Royal Roussel, professor emeritus of media study.
• Bonita M. Ryan, Government Relations.
• Robert J. Schuder, associate professor emeritus of anesthesiology.
• Albert T. Steegmann, Jr., professor emeritus of anthropology.
• Kenton Stewart, professor emeritus of biological sciences.
• Max A. Wickert, associate professor emeritus of English.

Joining the ranks of SUNY Distinguished Professor, the highest faculty rank in the SUNY system, are:

• Jonathan S. Dewald, SUNY Distinguished Professor of History.
• Chunming Qiao, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, and Electrical Engineering.
• John E. Tomaszewski, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences.

The Office of the Provost created the rank of UB Distinguished Professor to honor full professors who have achieved national or international recognition as experts in their fields. This year’s recipients are Robert M. Straubinger, professor of pharmaceutical sciences, and Gil I. Wolfe, professor and chair, and Irvin and Rosemary Smith Chair, Department of Neurology.

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities recognizes outstanding academic and creative achievements across a broad spectrum of scholarly and artistic fields. This year’s recipients are:

• Michel Bruneau, professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering.
• Anthony A. Campagnari, senior associate dean for research and graduate education, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and professor of microbiology and immunology.
• Gregory A. Fabiano, professor of counseling, school and educational psychology.
• Donald Mager, professor of pharmaceutical sciences.
• Jinhui Xu, professor of computer science and engineering.

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching recognizes professors who have demonstrated outstanding teaching ability through superb classroom performance. Recipients are Amy Graves Monroe, associate professor of romance languages and literatures, and William Prescott Jr., clinical associate professor and vice chair, Department of Pharmacy Practice.

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service recognizes “the consistently superior service contributions of teaching faculty” sustained over a period of time. This year’s recipient is Albert H. Titus, professor and chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering.

The Chancellor’s award for Excellence in Professional Service honors members of the professional staff for extraordinary performance “both within and beyond the position.”  Recipients are:

• Gwen Appelbaum, assistant dean and director, Career Resource Center, School of Management.
• Laura J. Barnum, associate vice president, Resource Planning
• Oscar A. Budde, associate vice provost and director of UB immigration services.
• Katharine P. Darling, associate dean for academic services. UB Graduate School.
• Christa M. Greenberg, coordinator of undergraduate studies and senior academic adviser for the undergraduate program, Department of Psychology.
• Joseph J. Helfer, senior assistant to the chair, Department of Biological Sciences.
• Andrew Koenig, assistant dean for projects and planning, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
• Jennifer Rosenberg, associate dean and director of admissions, enrollment planning and undergraduate advisement, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
• John S. Taylor, Sr., executive director of development for the Primary Care Research Institute, Department of Family Medicine.

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Classified Service honors employees in the classified services who have demonstrated exceptional achievement and superior performance of duties.  Recipients are:

• Laura Palka, assistant to the chief of staff, Office of the President.
• Jodi Reiner, graduate secretary, Department of Linguistics.
• Cheryl Tubisz, secretary, Department of Organization and Human Resources.

The UB President Emeritus and Mrs. Meyerson Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring, formerly known as the UB Faculty Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity, recognizes the outstanding faculty mentorship that currently exists at UB and seeks to encourage further faculty commitment to and participation in the undergraduate research and creative experience. Recipients are:

• Martha C. Bohm, assistant professor of architecture.
• John L Crassidis, CUBRC Professor in Space Situational Awareness and director of the Center for Multisource Information Fusion, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
• Walter N. Hakala, associate professor of English.

The UB Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring Award recognizes exceptional excellence in faculty mentoring of graduate students at UB.  The recipients are Venu Govindaraju, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and vice president for research and economic development, and Jennifer Read, professor of psychology.

The Exceptional Scholar Award for Sustained Achievement honors outstanding professional achievement that has been focused on a particular body of work over a number of years. It recognizes an unprecedented accomplishment in a senior scholar’s career, distinguishing a body of work of enduring importance that has gone beyond the norm in a particular field of study. Recipients are:

• Sathy V. Balu-lyer, professor of pharmaceutical science.
• Gino Biondini, professor and associate chair, Department of Mathematics.
• Jian Feng, professor of physiology and biophysics.
• Kemper E. Lewis, professor and chair, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
• Karin Michelson, professor of linguistics.
• Blaine Pfeifer, professor of chemical, biological and biomedical engineering.

The Exceptional Scholar Award for Young Investigators celebrates a recent superior award achievement of a scholar in his/her field of study. Such an achievement will have distinguished the recipient as an up-and-coming scholar, as well as earned the individual acclaim for his/her work, which could be a published work or other scholastic or artistic endeavor. Recipients are:

• Ashley Brooke Barr, assistant professor of sociology.
• Walter N. Hakala, associate professor of English.
• Juliane Nguyen, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences.
• Lu Su, assistant professor of computer science and engineering.
• Zhi Sun, assistant professor of electrical engineering.
• Chi Zhou, assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering.

The UB Teaching Innovation Award recognizes faculty members who have contributed significantly to engaging students with new methods and approaches to teaching that have enhanced student-learning outcomes. Recipients are:

• Alexander Nikolaev, assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering.
• Jessica Poulin, assistant professor of biological sciences.
• Lukasz Ziarek, assistant professor of computer science and engineering.