2015 USM Board of Regents Faculty Awards Presented
Adelphi, Md. (April 10, 2015) -- The University System of Maryland (USM) Board of Regents at its meeting today announced the 16 recipients of the 2015 USM Regents' Faculty Awards. The board met at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
The Regents' Faculty Awards represent the highest honor bestowed by the Board of Regents to recognize exemplary faculty achievement. Each award carries a $1,000 prize, provided by the institutions and the University System of Maryland Foundation.
The awards are presented in four categories: public service; teaching; mentoring; and research, scholarship, and creative activity.
Institutional Faculty Nominating Committees make recommendations to the institutional presidents, who review nominations and supporting material and forward recommendations to the Chancellor. The Regents' Faculty Review Committee makes the final recommendations.
PUBLIC SERVICE
Dr. William Burke, Professor of the Practice at Salisbury University (SU).
By reenergizing SU's business competitions, Professor Burke has attracted significant investment, press coverage, and national attention for Salisbury's entrepreneurial efforts. Over the past two years, with his leadership of Salisbury's Entrepreneurship Competitions, he has expanded the regional and national reputation of Salisbury University as a leader in entrepreneurship stimulating economic development, increasing employment, and expanding programs to support entrepreneurs.
Professor Burke is a founding member of the Shore Hatchery, which rewards individuals for their entrepreneurial efforts in the creation and growth of businesses. In 2013, the founding team received a $1 million dollar gift for the Perdue School of Business from the Ratcliffe Foundation to be awarded over five years to aspiring entrepreneurs via Shore Hatchery competitions.
With his guidance, the City of Salisbury and Wicomico County allocated funds to build an entrepreneurial center in downtown Salisbury. Professor Burke's success at bringing in a major gift has added to the competitive energy, spirit, and participation of these events.
Professor Bronwyn Mayden, Assistant Dean of Continuing Professional Education in the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB); Director of the Promise Heights initiative.
Promise Neighborhoods are federally designated efforts designed to improve the educational and developmental outcomes of children and youth in the most distressed U.S. communities. Since establishing Baltimore City's Promise Heights headquarters at Furman Templeton Preparatory Academy in West Baltimore, Professor Mayden has expanded the program significantly, surrounding socioeconomically disadvantaged children and families with support systems that enable success at home, in school, and in the community.
Professor Mayden has secured Family League of Baltimore funding to open two community schools, obtained additional resources from the state's 21st Century Fund, and attracted private support for an innovative "Parent University." Going well beyond her professional role, she works evenings and weekends in the community, making visits and contributions to local families. While her tireless work has benefited hundreds of students living in the Promise Heights neighborhood, more broadly Professor Mayden's leadership has strengthened UMB's efforts to become more deeply engaged in its surrounding communities.
Dr. Thomas J. Miller, Professor and Director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Studies (UMCES).
Professor Miller has worked closely with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to implement fisheries management based on the best available science. For more than 20 years, he has been at the epicenter of advancing scientifically informed decision-making leading to the sustainable use of Maryland's marine resources, particularly the Chesapeake Bay blue crab. In fact, Dr. Miller's work was an important factor in decisions by Governor Martin O'Malley and Virginia Governor Tim Kane to limit the harvest of the female blue crab.
It is noteworthy that Dr. Miller's work extends beyond blue crabs. He has been instrumental in developing methods to include ecosystem effects into fishery management models including an Ecosystem Fishery Management Plan for the Chesapeake Bay. For many years, Dr. Miller has served on the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee, a group that combines the expertise of Chesapeake Bay region state agencies and scientists with federal fisheries scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Dr. Mike Raupp, Professor of Entomology at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP).
Dr. Raupp is a world leader in developing innovative pest management strategies. His high quality Internet videos, local and national media appearances, and "Bug of the Week" blog have elevated public interest in insects and how they surround and interact with humans and nature.
Dr. Raupp is renowned for his work educating arborists, nursery and greenhouse operators, and landscape contractors. He has been a leader in training hundreds of Master Gardeners in advanced entomological topics including insect damage, beneficial insects, and insect ecology.
His research has played a pivotal role in developing integrated pest management for ornamental plants, and it has been applied to develop low-risk pesticides, greatly reducing threats to public health and the environment. His current research addresses the relevant issue of climate change and insects and his publication record boasts 85 peer-reviewed articles, 28 book chapters, 89 popular articles, and 58 extension papers.
TEACHING
Dr. Yan Bao, Associate Professor of Accounting in the College of Business at Frostburg State University (FSU).
As a teacher, Dr. Bao consistently receives high evaluations from students due to her student-centered teaching philosophy and her commitment to academic innovation. Whether teaching face-to-face, blended, or online courses, students consistently comment on her devotion and dedication. As an innovator, Dr. Bao led the development of the online MBA program at FSU. Using robust technology, this program provides an online conference room for live lectures and allows for real-time feedback and collaborative work.
Dr. Bao is also among the first faculty members who have extended the reach of FSU to businesses in China in a travel abroad program known as Impact China. This program has provided opportunities for students to meet with Chinese business leaders and experience the larger cities in China, thereby truly increasing their appreciation of "international relationships."
Dr. Bao has also taken her expertise beyond the Frostburg campus, serving as a board member for the Chinese Immersion program in West Side Elementary School in Allegany County.
Dr. Eileen O'Brien, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).
Dr. O'Brien's success in redesigning Psychology 100 at UMBC-and her expertise in course redesign in general-resulted in funding to redesign four gateway courses across disciplines at UMBC (calculus, English, organic chemistry, and introductory sociology).
As a Course Redesign Fellow with USM, Dr. O'Brien has worked with faculty at four other USM campuses to plan and evaluate their redesign efforts.
She has had a great impact on improving the way in which graduate students learn to teach by developing the Teaching Fellowship program, which provides mentors and opportunities for discussions of teaching to graduate students, some of whom are planning careers in teaching.
Dr. O'Brien's work has extended to faculty through her participation in the Faculty Development Center, where she leads workshops on teaching in small groups and on developing the flipped classroom. Recently, she also developed Faculty Learning Communities, which provides opportunities for faculty to come together over extended periods of time to discuss topics concerning teaching and learning.
Dr. Randy Ontiveros, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Department of English honors program at UMCP.
Dr. Ontiveros has brought a new dimension of scholarship and teaching to the university through his focus on U.S. Latino literature and culture, the Chicano literature and movement, comparative ethnic studies, women's studies, and American literature of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Dr. Ontiveros, who teaches at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, is highly regarded by his students and colleagues as a dynamic and effective teacher.
He has taught and coordinated the gateway course for English majors known as Critical Methods in the Study of Literature. As the director of the honors program, he teaches two seminars each year.
Dr. Ontiveros also developed and teaches a course called Literary Maryland, which focuses on the state's cultural and literary history from colonial times to the present. For the past three years, he has served on the faculty advisory board of the U.S. Latina/Latino Studies Program in the College of Arts and Humanities.
Dr. John Hudgins from the Department of Applied Social and Political Science at Coppin State University (CSU)
Dr. Bridal Pearson from the College of Public Affairs at the University of Baltimore (UB)
Dr. Hudgins and Dr. Pearson are recognized for their administrative stewardship and teaching in the Coppin/UB Human Services Administration Collaborative program. In 1999, UB and CSU initiated a collaboration focusing on building a joint Master's of Science in Human Services Administration. The success of the program is built on the very solid working relationship between co-directors Drs. Hudgins and Pearson.
The program allows students to take courses at either campus and the co-directors and professors to alternate the campus on which they teach. The Master's program includes two internships for which there is mentoring and ongoing classroom activities.
Drs. Hudgins and Pearson have demonstrated an outstanding ability to develop and oversee an inter-institutional program that is unique among Maryland institutions and also to provide highly effective direct teaching of the Master's students.
MENTORING
Dr. Jennifer Golbeck, Associate Professor of Information Studies at UMCP.
Dr. Golbeck conducts research on people's interactions with technology, specifically privacy, security, and trust in social networking and social media. She developed the iSeries course "Social Network Analysis" and wrote the textbook, Analyzing the Social Web.
She is particularly noted for promoting cross-disciplinary research and mentoring faculty and students. The numbers alone speak to her dedication and hard work in this area. Since her appointment as assistant professor in 2007, she has advised or co-advised six doctoral students, served as a member of eleven dissertation committees, directed eleven M.A. theses, and directed nine undergraduate research projects.
Dr. Golbeck consistently teaches more courses than is required of her, including online courses during winter and summer sessions; she once delayed a sabbatical for a year when a colleague's departure threatened to leave students adrift. She also directs the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory program and the Human Computer Interaction M.A. program, both of which entail extensive contact with students.
Professor Paula T. Morris, Professor of the Practice in the Perdue School of Business at Salisbury University.
Ms. Morris has worked tirelessly to enhance student career development activities for marketing and business majors. She has developed and teaches three new marketing courses: Direct & Interactive Marketing, Advanced Direct & Interactive Marketing, and Social Media Marketing, reflecting recent shifts in marketing theory and practice.
Professor Morris pushes her students out of the classroom into real-life situations to see how marketing works in practice. She pursues undergraduate internships for her students, often leading to employment after graduation. Ms. Morris has coached students participating in international, national, and local competitions in marketing, ethics, and entrepreneurship.
Beyond the university, Ms. Morris founded the Kids of Honor nonprofit organization that works with junior high and high school students to stay in school, graduate and, in many cases, go on to college. Her service with Kids of Honor, especially with young females, has twice earned her the Maryland's Top 100 Women award.
Dr. Barbara Resnick, the Sonia Ziporkin Gershowitz Chair in Gerontology in the School of Nursing at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB).
In 20-plus years on the faculty of UMB, Dr. Resnick has mentored and helped prepare a significant portion of the nursing workforce to meet the needs of Maryland's citizens.
On the graduate level, Dr. Resnick has served as primary mentor to 19 funded pre-doctoral and post-doctoral students in nursing, social work, pharmacy, and medicine. All of them have gone on to academic careers. She organizes workshops and dissemination programs, funded by the Hartford Foundation, to teach junior faculty and students how to write articles and publish their work.
Since 2010, she has published almost 100 peer-reviewed papers, most of which are published or co-authored with mentees. As a journal editor, Dr. Resnick provides thoughtful and constructive feedback to authors, helping to bring articles to publication.
In addition, she maintains a clinical faculty practice at a continuing care retirement community in Baltimore, where she actively involves students and junior faculty, applying theoretical principles to actual cases.
Dr. Michelle Scott, Associate Professor of History at UMBC.
As the graduate program director in the Department of History, Dr. Scott serves as advisor to all pre-thesis M.A. students. She is highly active as a specialist mentor as well, having supervised five theses and served on eight thesis committees in just the past three years.
Additionally, she regularly chairs or serves on M.A. thesis and doctoral dissertation committees for the interdisciplinary programs in Africana Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and Language, Literacy and Culture. Dr. Scott has trained many undergraduates in directed research projects, assisting them with the presentation of their findings at conferences. She has also mentored a number of undergraduates in the McNair Scholars program.
Off campus, she has been a mainstay of the Mellon Mays Fellowship Program, sponsored by the Mellon Foundation, that seeks to encourage and guide undergraduates from underrepresented groups into Ph.D. programs in Europe and North America. She has successfully mentored more than five graduate students per year since 2006.
RESEARCH, SCHOLARSHIP, AND CREATIVE ACTIVITY
Dr. Mikhail Anisimov, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UMCP.
Dr. Anisimov's field of research includes thermodynamics of fluids, liquid crystals, polymers, surfactant solutions, and other nano-structured materials. Dr. Anisimov has an impressive ability to create connections between the basic sciences and engineering. His breakthrough work has real world applications including oil recovery, procedures for plane de-icing, food preservation, and climate research through cloud formation.
His research includes collaborations with scientists from Asia, Europe, and Latin America, and he also serves on the editorial boards of five international research journals. In addition to teaching courses, Dr. Anisimov has advised several PhD students, supervised the research of undergraduate students, and mentored junior faculty and community college instructors.
In 2013, Dr. Anisimov established the Light Scattering Center at UMCP to promote research, education, and commerce in new fields of materials science, chemical and biomolecular engineering, colloid science, and chemistry and biochemistry for academia, government labs, and industry.
Dr. Kate Brown, Professor of History at UMBC.
Dr. Brown has made a series of landmark contributions that are recognized by scholars as redefining multiple fields of study including environmental history, community studies, security policy, Slavic studies, and U.S./Russian comparative studies.
The work produced through her mastery of these disciplines constitutes a truly novel and important contribution within academia and beyond. She has reached out to academic specialists and to broader non-academic audiences without diminishing the rigor of her work.
Dr. Brown's body of work, which has been funded by the most prestigious sources in the discipline, has been featured in the American Historical Review, the New York Journal of Books, and in Croatian, Dutch, Italian and Polish-language publications. Her scholarship has been characterized by leaders in the field as original, fearless, and based on an imaginative approach to sources, oral history, and narrative.
Dr. Abhijit Dasgupta, UMCP, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and one of the founding Principal Investigators of the University's Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE).
He has secured approximately $15 million in funding from many sources, including industry, the National Science Foundation, and government research labs. A prolific author, Dr. Dasgupta has written on the topics of electronics packaging, smart structures, and the basic mechanics of materials.
His work with CALCE has been recognized by awards from the Army Research Labs, the American Society for Mechanical Engineers, and the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, among others.
For more than 20 years, Dr. Dasgupta has worked to translate his scientific research to benefit industry and the public. In 1994, Dr. Dasgupta helped to establish the first comprehensive electronic packaging curriculum of its kind in the world, putting UMCP at the center of his discipline's map.
Dr. Wei Yu, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Towson University.
Dr. Yu's record of scholarship is underscored by a prolific publication record. Since fall 2009, he has contributed to the publication of 6 book chapters, 30 journal articles, and 56 conference papers appearing in premier, extremely competitive journals and conferences.
His scholarship is seen in the sustained funding he has attracted. Dr. Yu's research has resulted in eleven competitive grant awards totaling close to $1.5 million from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and other entities. Additionally, he has been a co-Principal Investigator on four competitive awards, totaling more than $2.3 million.
With extensive research funding support, Dr. Yu has established and supported an active Cyber-Physical Networking System and Security Research Laboratory that has provided scores of research assistantships to doctoral and master students. Dr. Yu's contributions in cyber security, computer networks, and cyber-physical systems are highlighted by the Fisher College of Science and Mathematics' Excellence in Scholarship, which he received in 2012.
Contact: Mike Lurie
Phone: 301.445.2719
Email: mlurie@usmd.edu