Nancy
Amato
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Year Awarded: 2011
Dr. Nancy Amato received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana in 1995 and was hired as an assistant professor at Texas A&M University the same year. She received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early CAREER Development Award and the TEES Select Young Faculty Award. Additionally, she received the designation of IEEE Fellow and has been awarded a TEES Fellow three times, for which she now has the designation of being a TEES Senior Fellow. She has received several teaching awards, including the Department Award for Teaching Excellence, College of Engineering Lockheed Martin Excellence in Engineering Teaching Award and a Center for Teaching Excellence Scholar designation.
She sets high expectations and clear objectives for students, and is well prepared to assist them with questions and concerns dealing with course subject matter. Dr. Amato is a committed advocate for the students, and is responsible for creating a mentor pool comprised of senior faculty to answer questions concerning class work, career advice, research and graduate school information. Her contributions include significantly revising content in four specialized graduate courses and active participation in the recent undergraduate curriculum overhaul.
One graduating senior wrote of Dr. Amato, “In my first semester here at Texas A&M, I was one of the very few students who actually knew where they wanted to end up in life. In my case, I want to be a College Professor. I met with Dr. Amato that first semester, and one of the things that made her stand apart from other professors was her enthusiasm and excitement to help start a young advantageous student's career choice. I have currently been working with her for over a year, and am excited to be continuing with her for my senior year, where she will be the advisor on my Undergraduate Research Thesis.”
A former student wrote, “Nancy’s engaging and open teaching and mentoring style was the cornerstone of my education at Texas A&M. Her influence on my educational and professional development was significant.”
College: Engineering
Award Level: Teaching
Nancy M.
Amato
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Year Awarded: 2018
Nancy Amato is Unocal Professor and Regents Professor in the Department of Computer Science where she co-directs the Parasol Lab. She is also senior director of Engineering Honors Programs in the College of Engineering and co-coordinator of the Computer Science and Engineering Track of Engineering Honors. She received bachelor’s degrees from Stanford University, a master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses are motion planning and robotics, computational biology and geometry, and parallel and distributed computing. Dr. Amato was program chair for the 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) and for the 2016 Robotics: Systems and Science Conference. She is an elected member of the Computing Research Association (CRA) Board of Directors and previously of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Administrative Committee. She has served as co-chair of the CRA's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research and was co-chair of the National Center for Women in Information Technology Academic Alliance. She has directed or co-directed the CRA-W/CDC Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates (DREU, formally known as the DMP) since 2000; DREU is a national program that matches undergraduate women and students from underrepresented groups, including ethnic minorities and persons with disabilities, with a faculty mentor for a summer research experience at the faculty member's home institution.
College: Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Award Level: Research
Susan Watkins
Ambrose ’78
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Year Awarded: 2001
College: President's Office
Award Level: Staff
Stephen
Amosson ’81
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Year Awarded: 2001
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Extension/ Continuing Education
J.W.
Amyx ’42
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Year Awarded: 1961
College: Engineering
Award Level: Student Relations
Nagamangala “N.K.”
Anand
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Year Awarded: 2018
Nagamangala Krishnamurthy “N.K.” Anand earned a bachelor’s degree from Bangalore University, a master’s degree from Kansas State University, and a doctorate from Purdue University. He is the executive associate dean in the College of Engineering and associate director of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES). He is also the James and Ada Forsyth Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Anand has served at Texas A&M University for 32 years, seven of those years as Executive Associate Dean in the College of Engineering. In his role as executive associate dean, he serves as chief operating officer for the College of Engineering, overseeing 13 departments with more than 500 faculty members. He was named a Regents Professor by the Texas A&M System Board of Regents in 2014 and received The Association of Former Students University-Level Distinguished Achievement Award for Teaching in 2001. His research has also been recognized with many honors and awards over the years and he was elevated to the grade of Fellow with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1996. Since joining Texas A&M, he has held numerous administrative leadership positions. In the Department of Mechanical Engineering, he served as graduate program director and associate department head. At the college level, he served as assistant dean for graduate programs, interim department head for the Department of Chemical Engineering, associate dean of graduate programs, associate dean for research, associate director of TEES, interim executive associate dean, acting vice chancellor, interim dean, and acting director of TEES. For his outstanding service and dedication, he was awarded the Charles W. Crawford Service Award in 2006.
College: College of Engineering
Award Level: Administration
Carol Riggs
Anderson
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Year Awarded: 1972
College: Liberal Arts
Award Level: Teaching
John
Anderson
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Year Awarded: 1961
College: Liberal Arts
Award Level: Teaching
S. Kent
Anderson '93
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Year Awarded: 2014
Early on, Kent S. Anderson set out to teach and earned degrees in education as well as a teaching certificate. But he ended up spending the majority of his career in the real estate business, ultimately coming to Texas A&M and earning a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Science. Still the dream of teaching stuck with him. In 2007, he made his dream a reality when he joined the faculty of the College of Architecture’s Master of Land & Property Development Program. Soon after, he was given the task of establishing core competencies and redesigning the program’s curriculum. The five courses he now teaches reflect the industry’s best practices and give students the opportunity to learn from an active practitioner.
His students say that he provides a real-world perspective that allows them to understand the pieces of the puzzle fit together. Moreover, they say he’s not afraid to discuss his business-life failures as well as his successes. A former student writes that Dr. Anderson teaches students to analyze real-life projects so they can fully grasp the concepts and the thought processes involved in development. His teaching goes far beyond a textbook, spreadsheet, or site layout and engages the student in connecting the dots between what was learned in the classroom and what happens in the field. A colleague concurs, “Dr. Anderson’s courses epitomize interdisciplinary teaching and collaboration;” “Dr. Anderson engages students and offers high-impact learning experiences that prepare students for work in the real world;” and, “Dr. Anderson is the glue that holds his graduate program together.” Still another colleague writes that he is a role model, helping us all become better teachers through his example and mentorship. “He is an effective caring teacher, who combines his professional expertise and industry experience with teaching seamlessly.”
College: College of Architecture
Award Level: Teaching
James
Anderson ’52
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Year Awarded: 1976
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Teaching
Carl
Anderson ’58
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Year Awarded: 1992
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Extension/ Continuing Education
Rayford
Anthony ’58
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Year Awarded: 1987
College: Engineering
Award Level: Research
Stanley Louis
Archer ’57
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Year Awarded: 1974
College: Liberal Arts
Award Level: Teaching
Victor
Arizpe
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Year Awarded: 1990
College: Liberal Arts
Award Level: Teaching
Norma
Arizpe
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Year Awarded: 2018
Norma Arizpe was born in Donna, Texas, a small community in the Rio Grande Valley near the U.S./Mexico border. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Pan American University in nearby Edinburg, Texas (now part of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), and a master’s degree from the University of Michigan. Teaching has always been part of her being. Early in her career she was a junior high school teacher in the Donna ISD as well as an English-as-a-second-language (ESL) instructor in San Juan, Texas, and Detroit, Michigan. Her first job at Texas A&M was as an ESL instructor in the English Language Institute before becoming a member of the Department of Hispanic Studies (then known as the Department of Modern & Classical Languages), where she started out as a Spanish lecturer. Based on the merits of her outstanding performance in the classroom, she soon earned promotion to senior lecturer. In Hispanic Studies, Ms. Arizpe teaches undergraduate courses in first and second-year Spanish and many 300-level courses. Over the last few years, she created three courses in medical Spanish in conjunction with the Texas A&M Health Science Center (HSC); Medical Spanish is now firmly embedded into the HSC’s curricular offerings. These courses have been a huge success, and mirror the achievement Ms. Arizpe has found throughout her career as an instructor. She has been honored for her commitment to teaching as a Fish Camp namesake in 1992 and as a T-Camp namesake in 1996. In addition, she was chosen to lead planning for the “¡Siempre! 130 years of Hispanics at Texas A&M” exhibit housed in the Cushing Library and was selected for The Association of Former Students College-Level Distinguished Award in Teaching in 2009.
College: Department of Hispanic Studies
Award Level: Teaching
David
Armstrong
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Year Awarded: 1991
College: Education and Human Development
Award Level: Teaching
Robert
Armstrong
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Year Awarded: 1999
College: Education and Human Development
Award Level: Research
Richard
Arnowitt
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Year Awarded: 1997
College: Science
Award Level: Research
John
August
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Year Awarded: 1994
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Administration
James A.
Aune
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Year Awarded: 2003
College: Liberal Arts
Award Level: Teaching
Scott
Austin
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Year Awarded: 1995
College: Liberal Arts
Award Level: Teaching
Imadel
Bachus
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Year Awarded: 1980
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Student Relations
Alexandru
Balaban
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Year Awarded: 2007
Alexandru T. Balaban was born in Romania, where he taught organic chemistry for 40 years. He began collaborating with scientists at Texas A&M University in Galveston in 1991, and became a tenured professor here in 2000. For three years he was a Senior Research Scientist at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna for radio-pharmaceuticals. Dr. Balaban’s scientific achievements include the discovery of a new synthesis of pyrylium salts by diacylation of alkenes (the Balaban-Nenitzescu-Praill reaction), a new syntheses of oxazoles and indolizines, demonstration of the catalytic automerization (a term Dr. Balaban coined) of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, the development of new donors of nitric oxide, and the introduction of new molecular descriptors(one of which is known as the Balaban topological index, used for molecular modeling). Dr. Balaban edited the first book on the chemical applications of graph theory, and he published his studies on graph-theoretical characteristics that predicted the structure of fullerene cages, and predicted the existence of graphitic cones before they were observed.
Dr. Balaban is the author/coauthor of 700 research papers (peer-reviewed journals), 60 chapters (edited books), and 16 authored or edited books. He is a member of Academies in Romania and Hungary, and is on the editorial board of over 10 scientific journals.
College: Marine Sciences (TAMUG)
Award Level: Research
Perla B.
Balbuena
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Year Awarded: 2018
Perla B. Balbuena earned a bachelor’s degree from the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, Argentina, a master’s from the University of Pennsylvania, and a doctorate from the University of Texas. She joined the faculty of the College of Engineering in 2004 as a Professor of Chemical Engineering with joint appointments in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and in the Department of Chemistry. Previously, she was a faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on the first principles analysis and characterization of materials for catalysis, separations, and energy storage and conversion. She has published more than 250 scientific papers in her field of research and has an h-index of 53 with more than 10,000 citations according to Google Scholar. Dr. Balbuena’s research is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Office (Battery Materials Research), by the Catalysis Division of Basic Energy Sciences, and by Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute. Among her awards, she has received a CAREER from the National Science Foundation and a Young Investigator Award from the University of South Carolina. She has twice been named a TEES Fellow and once named a TEES Senior Fellow. In 2013, she was elected an AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science “for distinguished contributions to the theory of interfacial processes, through molecular simulation of electrochemical reactions and materials properties at the nanoscale.”
College: Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering
Award Level: Research
Richard
Baldauf ’51
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Year Awarded: 1963
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Teaching
Badi H.
Baltagi
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Year Awarded: 2002
College: Business
Award Level: Research
W.C.
Banks ’41
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Year Awarded: 1961
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Teaching
Murray
Barrick
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Year Awarded: 2013
Murray Barrick earned his B.A. from the University of Northern Iowa and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Akron. He joined Mays Business School in 2006 where he holds the Robertson Chair and teaches courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. His research focuses on the impact individual differences in behavior and personality have on job performance and on methods of measuring and predicting such differences. He received the Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and has been recognized as the 5th most published author in Journal of Applied Psychology and Personnel Psychology. Dr. Barrick is a Fellow of the Academy of Management and of SIOP and serves as chair of the HR Division of the Academy of Management.
Dr. Barrick’s pioneering work in the area of personality has had landmark implications and influence. His path-breaking article, coauthored with M.K. Mount, provided both a new conceptual framework for understanding how certain personality traits predict performance and empirical evidence to support that framework. Specifically, the authors unequivocally demonstrated its potential significance to both theory and research, as well as to the practice of management. Here are some reviewer comments. “Murray Barrick is among the few scholars who have shown that personality can be quite strongly related to employee’s attitudes and behaviors. . . . Murray’s record shines not only for its importance and quality, but also for its consistency.” “. . . his scientific contribution has been nothing short of remarkable.” And “. . . Murray Barrick has been a pivotal figure in the field’s renewed interest in personality.”
Dr. Barrick continues to publish in the top journals and, indeed, his rate of publication has actually increased over the past five years.
College: Department of Management
Award Level: Research
Mary Sandra
Barringer '90
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Year Awarded: 1995
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Student Relations