About

CoSM Teaching Awards

The College of Science and Mathematics is pleased to announce the 2015-16 teaching awards. Congratulations to Chad Hammerschmidt, Ph.D., on being selected as the recipient of The Students' Choice Award along with Michal Kraszpulski, Ph.D., and Labib Rouhana, Ph.D., as recipients of The Dean's Early Career Teaching Excellence Award.

Chad Hammerschmidt, Ph.D., The Students' Choice Award

The Dean's Circle creates and distributes the ballot used for the students' choice award. All CoSM students can nominate a full-time faculty instructor. This is an entirely student driven award.

The 2015-16 Students' Choice Award goes to Dr. Chad Hammerschmidt in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences for receiving the greatest number of votes from our students. During the spring term Dr. Hammerschmidt teaches EES 4510/6510 Effective Scientific Communication, or EES 4590/6590 Advanced Aquatic Geochemistry,and summer term he teaches EES 4010/601 Limnology.

Dr. Hammerschmidt's research is focused on developing a quantitative understanding of the biological, chemical, and physical mechanisms and processes that affect the transport, transformation, and fate of mercury and other trace metals in the environment.  His recent and on-going studies are examining the biogeochemistry of mercury and methylmercury in arctic and temperate watersheds, coastal and pelagic marine systems, and the atmosphere.

Michal Kraszpulski, Ph.D., and Labib Rouhana, Ph.D., The Dean's Early Career Teaching Excellence Award.

The CoSM Teaching Awards Committee received nominations and self-nominations, and requested that candidates provide information on the professional development activities (external workshops, CTL collaborations) they engaged in as well as describe their teaching approaches. In addition, candidates were recorded during class time and highlights of the recordings were viewed by the committee. Each recipient receives a cash award of $1,000.  

Michal Kraszpulsk_v2i.jpgDr. Michal Kraszpulski, whose appointment is split between the departments of Psychology and Neuroscience, Cell Biology & Physiology, is the Instructor recipient of the Dean's Early Career Teaching Excellence Award. He teaches several courses including: Animal Behavior, Behavioral Neuroscience 1 & 2 and Human Neurobiology. In each of these courses he is putting students into small groups in order to discuss lecture- or research paper-related questions. Students share, argue, and come to consensus before reporting out their agreed-upon answer. They are also grading their team-mates efforts.

In the late summer, Dr. Kraszpulski will be taking a group of students on a study abroad version of Animal Behavior in Poland, where students will observe the behavior of different animal species in field stations and a city zoo.

Labib Rouhana.JPGDr. Labib Rouhana was selected by the Teaching Awards Committee for the Assistant Professor recipient of the Dean's Early Career Teaching Excellence Award. Dr. Rouhana has developed an entirely new course for advanced undergraduates and graduate students. The course is designed around Dr. Rouhana's research; students are provided with a series of gene constructs from planarian flatworms, and throughout the semester they perform molecular biology experiments and microscopy to determine the tissue of expression and function of each gene. A highlight in the course is the student presentations in which they report the potential discovery of of "their" analyzed genes' functions, as well as mechanistic hypotheses based on analysis of genetic sequence homology and microscopy observations.