Cynthia
Hurt
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Year Awarded: 2014
Cynthia “Cindy” Hurt came to Texas A&M in 1983 and joined the staff of Department of Anthropology in 2004. She has 23 years of experience at Texas A&M University. She earned an associate’s degree from Blinn College and is a Certified Administrative Professional.
Her nominator describes Ms. Hurt as the go-to person for the department’s faculty, staff and students. As assistant to the department head “she wears a lot of hats and actually does much more than her title suggests.” She is the Human Resources Liaison handling all employment, payroll, and personnel matters for 24 faculty, 3 staff and more than 40 graduate and undergraduate student employees. She is the building proctor, maintaining the department’s facilities, including more than 15 scientific research and teaching labs. She is the facilities and equipment manager, administering keys and maintaining the department’s equipment inventory. She is the department’s office manager, supervising two full-time staff and four part-time student workers. She is the visiting scholar facilitator, administering campus visits of invited lecturers, faculty job candidates, Fulbright Fellows, etc. She is the student scholarship, fellowship, and assistantship administrator, chronicling graduate student eligibility for assistantships, processing graduate student tuition waivers, posting scholarships, and facilitating graduate assistantship assignments. She is the travel and purchasing manager, reviewing and approving faculty, student, and staff travel and significant equipment purchases. Finally, she is assistant to the department head, maintaining the department’s budget and gathering and analyzing data to be used in annual reports to the dean. He concludes saying, “My head spins every time I think about Ms. Hurt’s various roles in the department. She’s the glue that holds not just the department office together, but the whole department—its faculty, staff and students.”
College: College of Liberal Arts
Award Level: Staff
F. Russell
Huson
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Year Awarded: 1990
College: Science
Award Level: Research
Mark A.
Hussey '79
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Year Awarded: 2017
Dr. Mark Hussey’s 34-year career at Texas A&M University began as a graduate student and has brought him to the top of the organization. After earning his master’s then Ph.D. in plant breeding, he was a faculty member and later head of the department of soil and crop sciences. He was later named director of Texas A&M AgriLife Research. In 2008, he was appointed vice chancellor and dean for agriculture and life sciences, and in 2014, he went to Texas A&M University as interim president. In May 2015, Dr. Hussey returned to be vice chancellor and dean, where he leads the college’s 300+ faculty and nearly 8,000 students. He also oversees The Texas A&M University System’s four agricultural agencies: Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, Texas A&M Forest Service, and Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, as well as the University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. A visionary and dedicated servant leader, Dr. Hussey has managed the creation of an unprecedented construction campaign that makes the west campus home to 13 of 14 academic departments. It includes the multi-million dollar agriculture and life sciences complex on the Texas A&M University campus, providing the first-of-its-kind headquarters for Texas A&M AgriLife. Additionally, he created the vision and raised more than $6 million dollars to build the first phase of The Gardens at Texas A&M University, a unique and beautiful outdoor classroom for Aggies and the community. He also initiated the AgriLife Advanced Leadership Program, which provides leadership training for AgriLife faculty leaders in the making. He is an advocate for the land-grant university system of research, teaching and extension, holding national leadership positions in the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.
College: College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Administration
Thomas
Iliffe
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Year Awarded: 2013
Thomas Iliffe has been a member of the faculty at Texas A&M University at Galveston for 23 years. He earned a B.S. in biochemistry from Penn State University, an M.S. in oceanography from Florida State University and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Texas Medical Branch. Before coming to Texas A&M, he served for 11 years as a research associate at the Bermuda Biological Station. He currently teaches graduate and undergraduate marine biology courses, including Biospeleology (cave biology), Introduction to Scientific Diving, Methods in Research Diving, and Tropical Marine Ecology. All are courses he independently developed. The Tropical Marine Ecology class is approved as a study abroad program and has been taught each of the past 12 summers in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.
Dr. Iliffe’s teaching comes from his own educational experiences. A diving-based course gave him the opportunity to investigate a coral reef ecosystem firsthand. This experience and his participation in the U.S. Navy’s Scientist in the Sea training program led him to develop the Scientific Diver training program that he has taught for the past 20 years. Dr. Iliffe also brings his research on the biology of submarine to his courses. He believes that high-impact field experiences give his students unforgettable memories and life skills for teamwork and the confidence to accomplish things they thought were impossible.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Thomas Iliffe has influenced millions of people worldwide as well as students at A&M. His exploits have been featured as a cover story in the National Geographic magazine and on television programs produced by National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, PBS, the History Channel and a variety of international public broadcasting networks. He truly represents the finest qualities of Texas A&M faculty to people around the world.
College: Texas A&M University at Galveston
Award Level: Teaching
Brian
Imhoff
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Year Awarded: 2006
College: Liberal Arts
Award Level: Teaching
Karin
Ippen-Ihler
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Year Awarded: 1986
College: Medicine
Award Level: Research
R. Duane
Ireland
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Year Awarded: 2012
Duane Ireland joined the faculty of Texas A&M’s Mays Business School in July 2005 and holds the Conn Chair in New Ventures Leadership. He earned his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University. He has authored or co-authored more than 20 books and published more than 90 articles in journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Executive, Strategic Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Decision Sciences, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practices, and the Journal of Business Venturing.
Dr. Ireland is one of the premier scholarly contributors in strategy, entrepreneurship, and management. In fact, his research has been instrumental in creating the field of strategic entrepreneurship. Through his research, he has highlighted the crucial relationships between privatization, globalization, and corporate entrepreneurship and spurred the launch of a new journal dedicated to the study of these topics, the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal.
He is the Vice-President Elect and Program Chair of the Academy of Management, a world-wide association with close to 20,000 members. Previously, he served as a member of the Academy’s Board of Governors, as a member of its Executive Committee, and as Secretary of its Business Policy and Strategy Division. He recently completed service as the Editor of the Academy of Management Journal and also has served as an Associate Editor for Academy of Management Journal and for the Academy of Management Executive and as a Consulting Editor for Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.
He is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a Fellow of the Strategic Management Society, a Research Fellow in the Global Entrepreneurship Consortium, and a Falcone Fellow in Entrepreneurship. He has been a frequently invited participant for doctoral and new faculty consortia for the Business Policy and Strategy and Entrepreneurship Divisions of the Academy of Management.
College: Mays Business School
Award Level: Research
George A.
Jackson
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Year Awarded: 2004
College: Geosciences
Award Level: Research
Kevin
Jackson ’00
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Year Awarded: 1995
College: MSC
Award Level: Student Relations
Timothy
Jacobs
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Year Awarded: 2012
Timothy Jacobs earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2005 and joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the Dwight Look College of Engineering in September 2006. His teaching interests include thermodynamics, internal combustion engines, and experimental methods. He is currently involved in a major redesign of the content and structure for the first course on thermodynamics that will improve students’ understanding of entropy and available energy.
Dr. Jacobs is the recipient of numerous teaching and research awards, including the Montague/CTE Scholars Award, the John Weese Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Texas A&M Chapter of Pi Tau Sigma, the Peggy L. and Charles L. Brittan Teaching Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching, and the Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award from SAE International.
Dr. Jacob’s effectiveness as a teacher is driven by the three pillars of his teaching philosophy: clear, organized lectures that forge a professional atmosphere between educator and students; linking concepts and applications that enable career-long retention; and modeling techniques and strategies for learning that help students become life-long learners.
In testament to his dedication, one of his students writes, “He is the most organized, well-spoken, knowledgeable, and personable professors I have come in contact with thus far at A&M. His teaching methods are beyond what any student will expect and the structure of our class was unbeatable. He is truly a wonderful professor who is very concerned with his students learning the materials.” Another student writes, “Excellent professor, always open to questions and deeply cares that his students are learning and enjoying the material. I feel like I learned and retained the most than from any course I have taken.”
His nominator concludes that he is looking forward to Dr. Jacobs’ continued development as an educator and a scholar.
College: Engineering
Award Level: Teaching
Laurie
Jaeger
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Year Awarded: 2001
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Teaching
Robert
James
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Year Awarded: 1999
College: Education and Human Development
Award Level: Extension/ Continuing Education
Edward
Janosky
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Year Awarded: 1988
College: Budget/Payroll
Award Level: Staff
Arul
Jayaraman
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Year Awarded: 2014
Arul Jayaraman has been a member of the faculty of the Dwight Look College of Engineering since 2004. He is the holder of the Ray B. Nesbitt I Professorship in Chemical Engineering. After earning concurrent degrees in chemical engineering and physics from the Birla Institute of Technology & Science in Pilani, India, Dr. Jayaraman went on to earn an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Irvine. He has been recognized for teaching excellence with the Celanese Teaching Excellence Award and the Tenneco Meritorious Teaching Award.
Dr. Jayaraman’s teaching philosophy puts the student at the center of the learning experience. Put simply, he strives to create an interactive and highly effective learning environment where students actively engage in the learning process. This is important in the graduate and undergraduate courses he teaches related to his field of research, but it is critical in the sophomore-level course “Elementary Chemical Engineering” that’s required for all chemical engineering majors. To meet the range of learning needs in this large and diverse class, he has introduced technology and innovative teaching approaches, such as the online problem solving system, Sapling Learning. These approaches have proven to be immensely successful and, despite the size of the class and the spectrum of abilities and—ultimately— grades, he repeatedly achieves extraordinary instructor ratings. In addition to his regular teaching and research, Dr. Jayaraman has mentored 30 undergraduates and 3 high school students in his lab. This level of involvement is extremely significant and requires a major time commitment, which clearly demonstrates his passion for mentoring undergraduates.
College: College of Engineering
Award Level: Teaching
Peter
Jenkins
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Year Awarded: 1983
College: Engineering
Award Level: Extension/ Continuing Education
William
Jenkins
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Year Awarded: 1985
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Teaching
Daniel
Jennings '86
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Year Awarded: 2011
Dr. Dan Jennings has been employed at Texas A&M for fifteen years after serving as an endowed professor at Baylor University where he gained an international reputation in corporate entrepreneurship. He redesigned the course content for numerous undergraduate courses at TAMU to develop higher order thinking skills and developed courses to relate industrial distribution theory to practice for MID courses. He has served as advisor to numerous doctoral and master students. He received the Outstanding Educator Award from the Federation of Business Disciplines. Professor Jennings has published 309 articles in academic and practitioner publications, authored or co-authored twenty-two textbooks and has written twenty-one chapters in textbooks authored by others. His research has been published in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and he has received seventeen Best Paper Awards including the National Academy of Management. He has served as member of Editorial Review Boards of academic journals, president of an academic society, editor of academic publications, and contributing editor for practitioner publications. Dr. Jennings has been either Principal or Co-Principal Investigator for applied research projects totaling $2.1 Million and has obtained over $5 million in endowments, scholarships and laboratories for TAMU. Professor Jennings has served as Visiting Professor at universities in Russia, France, Canada, Mexico, Italy, and Australia and has conducted executive development programs in the U.S., Canada, France, Mexico, and Italy. He is an active labor arbitrator and a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators.
One former student wrote, “After graduating from the Master of Industrial Distribution program, Dr. Jennings' commitment to me, his student, did not stop. Continually throughout my career, I have had the advantage of presenting my plans to Dr. Jennings, and he has provided his input that has helped me develop successful strategies.”
Another former student wrote, “… the greatest gift I received as an Aggie, was the positive influence Dr. Jennings had on virtually every aspect of my life. While I have advanced in my career since graduating with an MID in 2009, I have become a better father, husband, son, friend, manager and employee. I owe much of this to Dr. Jennings.”
College: Engineering
Award Level: Teaching
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Larry
Johnson
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Year Awarded: 2017
Larry Johnson, professor of veterinary integrative biosciences, earned his Ph.D. in reproductive physiology from Colorado State University. He joined the faculty of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in 1987. His scholarly interests are in toxicology, histology and reproductive physiology. He teaches a graduate course in scientific ethics and undergraduate, graduate and professional level courses in histology. He also teaches a new elective for veterinary students on the development of communication, organization and mentoring skills through outreach to K-12 students. His nominators say that he is passionate about teaching and helping students to learn. His philosophy is that teaching represents a unique opportunity for instructors to facilitate students’ inherent desire to learn by stimulating their curiosity and imagination. As an example of his desire to reach students where they are, all of his supporters lauded his YouTube channel (VIBS Histology), which features 140 videos that he produced to help his students learn about histology and to make sense of slides that look like “a bunch of pink and purple with little lines and flakes and swirls.” Amplifying that praise, one former student noted that of the almost 6,000 subscribers to the channel “only 31% of the views are within the United States, which means that an overwhelming majority of his outreach is educating students globally.” His nominators say that it is “his intent is to educate the world.” In that regard, he teaches his students to also be passionate about teaching and particularly about working with K-12 youth to peak their interest in agricultural, environmental, and veterinary/medical sciences. In short, as a current student wrote, “Dr. Johnson has a joy for teaching and education.”
College: Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences
Award Level: Teaching
Larry
Johnson
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Year Awarded: 2007
Larry Johnson earned a B.S. from North Carolina State University, an M.S. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, and a Ph.D. from Colorado State University. He came to Texas A&M in 1987. As well as being an accomplished researcher in mammalian reproduction, Dr. Johnson has contributed to science as a teacher and a leader of science education programs. He established, and now coordinates, several programs to create and sustain an interface between public schools and higher education. His focus is on making science accessible and exciting for youngsters at a prime developmental stage: middle school (grades 5-7). To engage students in science, Dr. Johnson has obtained substantial funding to develop unique and exciting teaching materials, supply teacher training, and provide classroom visits.
“His success in strengthening the science education in rural schools in Texas has become almost legendary,” one peer notes. Says another, “He is truly evangelical when it comes to the need for university faculty and students to engage and support the efforts of educators statewide, but especially those located in rural, underserved areas.”
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Continuing Education/Extension
Glenn
Johnson
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Year Awarded: 1973
College: Education and Human Development
Award Level: Teaching
William
Johnson
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Year Awarded: 1991
College: Science
Award Level: Research
Jerral
Johnson ’60
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Year Awarded: 1983
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Extension/ Continuing Education
James
Johnson ’78
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Year Awarded: 1989
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Teaching
Mark
Johnson ’88
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Year Awarded: 2009
College: College of Veterinary Medicine
Award Level: Teaching
William
Jones
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Year Awarded: 1973
College: Engineering
Award Level: Research
Eluned
Jones '87
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Year Awarded: 2011
Dr. Eluned Jones’ is the Director of the Master of Agribusiness (MAB) program, an intercollegiate degree program with the Mays Business School, and chairs the Intercollegiate Faculty of Agribusiness. Jones holds Honors BS (University of Bath, UK) and MS (N.C. State University) degrees in horticultural crop production and a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Texas A&M. She was a faculty member at Virginia Tech for 14 years before joining the Texas A&M faculty in August 2002. Jones is a co-recipient of awards for excellence from the Southern Agricultural Economics Association and the American Society of Agronomy, and is a fellow of the Kellogg-funded Leadership Development Program at the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy. She chaired numerous regional and national academic committees relating to food and agribusiness marketing and policy including the American Agricultural Economics Association Sections on Extension and on Food and Agricultural Marketing Policy. She served on the Federal Grain Inspection and Packers and Stockyards Administration Industry Advisory Committee and chaired the Wheat Industry Resource Committee of the National Association of Wheat Growers. Jones is advisor to all MAB students and also teaches two of the core courses in the program. Since fall 2002 she has advised 116 MAB graduates and currently advises 38 students in the MAB program. Jones has taught and given presentations worldwide, and has helped establish an undergraduate agribusiness degree in El Salvador and a Master of Agribusiness in Armenia. Jones research analyzes the political and economic influence of institutions on the food system, in particular the public/government versus private role in assuring transparency, traceability and food safety across global supply chains.
One colleague wrote, “She is a strong and passionate advocate for her students. She sets her sights on transforming their lives, a true challenge to accomplish within the short time-frame of the professional master’s degree. Life transformations do not come easy and they only are possible with the application of multiple approaches to teaching and guidance. Dr. Jones begins by helping students understand concepts, engaging them in new ideas, opening their minds to new solutions or opportunities, and then energizing and rewarding them to follow through.”
College: College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Graduate Mentoring
Ellen R.
Jordan
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Year Awarded: 2018
Ellen Jordan earned a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University, and a master’s and doctoral degrees from Oregon State University. As a dairy specialist, Dr. Jordan oversees all aspects of dairy management educational programs for dairy producers in Texas, including nutrition, cow comfort, herd health, water resource management, labor training and management, heifer development, environmental protection, and reproduction. She has worked with dairy producers throughout the country troubleshooting herd productivity issues and environmental concerns and has participated in dairy seminars or workshops throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Mexico, China and the Kyrgyz Republic. In collaboration with the Borlaug Institute and industry partners, she has provided training for many international visitors from Russia, Japan, Panama, Morocco, Turkey, Iraq, and Afghanistan. She has authored or co-authored 15 refereed journal articles, more than 300 popular press articles, and more than 1,600 radio programs. Dr. Jordan has been interviewed or served as an information source for media outlets, such as USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Chicago Tribune, as well as being interviewed for ABC, CBS, NBC, WB, and Fox affiliates on such diverse topics as BSE, Foot and Mouth Disease, product safety, dairy industry trends, hormones in milk, and drought. She has generated more than $2.2 million in support of dairy extension programs from diverse sources, including the Texas Association of Dairymen, American Jersey Cattle Association, USDA, Texas Animal Health Commission, Southwest Dairy Farmers, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo™, PepsiCo Foundation, and nutrition and pharmaceutical industry allies. She has edited the proceedings for over 35 state, national, and regional technical conferences in reproduction, nutrition, labor management, and environmental management.
College: Department of Animal Science
Award Level: Extension, Outreach, Continuing Education and Prof
Sally Guyton
Joyner
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Year Awarded: 2002
College: Business
Award Level: Teaching