Walter Gillis
Peacock
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 2014
Walter Gillis Peacock earned his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. He joined the faculty of the College of Architecture in 2003 where he is director of the Hazard Reduction and Recover Center and assistant director of the Texas Census Research Data Center. He is locally, nationally, and internationally recognized for his research on disaster recovery, resiliency, and social vulnerability. He has been awarded the Sandy and Bryan Mitchell Master Builder Endowed Chair and the Rodney L. Dockery Endowed Professorship in Housing and the Homeless from the College of Architecture. Nationally, he was awarded the Quarantelli Award for Social Science Disaster Theory, and he was elected president of the International Research Committee on Disasters. He has published 2 books and more than 160 journal articles, book chapters, research monographs, and professional papers. He has given briefings on household, housing, and community disaster recovery, resilience, and vulnerability to local, state, and federal officials, including programs for the White House Conference Center on resiliency research, the National Academy of Science, and the National Science Foundation.
A supporter noted, Dr. Peacock’s contribution to the human dimension of disaster recovery “has become the foundation for the fields of disaster sociology and social vulnerability.” Furthermore he “is a pioneer in introducing new analytical methods into the field…especially...his Domestic Assets Index…a breakthrough in quantifying household recovery after a disaster event. Another supporter noted, “Dr. Peacock’s works [methodological] are used as standards for conceptualization and measurement, for understanding substantive areas within the study of disasters….” A colleague concludes, “Peacock’s passion for his topic and his ability to articulate the need for and utility of further research on the social impacts of disasters have heavily influenced the national, and even international, research agenda.”
College: College of Architecture
Award Level: Research
Svetozar
Pejovich
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1987
College: Liberal Arts
Award Level: Teaching
Campbell
Pennington
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1981
College: Geosciences
Award Level: Teaching
James D.
Pennington
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 2015
After earning his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Jim Pennington joined the faculty of the College of Science in 1998. His primary responsibility and professional passion is teaching three sections of sophomore organic chemistry for non-majors each semester. He says being able to interact with and influence these future doctors, dentists, veterinarians, and engineers at a critical time in their intellectual development is a blessing and incredibly rewarding. Among his colleagues and students, he has earned a reputation as an energetic, enthusiastic, challenging, and rigorous instructor who holds his students to the highest standards while doing everything in his power to help them succeed. He holds multiple office hours most days and an evening help session once a week. For his devotion, his students honored him as a Fish Camp Namesake. Dr. Pennington also enjoys motivating others to enjoy and learn about sciences in his role as the coordinator and chief presenter for the Texas A&M Chemistry Road Show, one of the premier outreach programs of the university. The Chemistry Road Show is a K-12 program that is presented 50 to 60 times per year at schools and to other organizations throughout Texas, reaching about 10,000 students annually. Many of these students are motivated to pursue careers in science—perhaps at Texas A&M. Serving as coordinator of the Roadshow has an added bonus for Dr. Pennington because he has the opportunity to work closely with and mentor 20 or so Aggies who participate as assistant demonstrators, putting them on a path to involvement in service and community outreach. A former student writes, “Dr. Pennington renewed my love for science and gave me the motivation to continue pursuing my goal of becoming a physician.… I am now in medical school…and without a doubt, he is the most helpful and encouraging professor I have had during my academic career.”
College: College of Science
Award Level: Teaching
Mary Margaret "Meg"
Penrose
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 2017
Meg Penrose, professor of law, joined the faculty of Texas Wesleyan School of Law, now known as Texas A&M School of Law in 2009. She earned her Juris Doctorate from Pepperdine Law School and her Mater of Laws in international human rights from the University of Notre Dame Law School. Her nominators wrote, “Professor Penrose personifies excellence in teaching.” Her students constantly praise her as being the best teacher they’ve ever had! Students love her enthusiasm, creativity and passion for the law. Her dean noted that she is an “exceptional and respected teacher, as reflected in [her] strong teaching evaluations and multiple teaching awards.” Professor Penrose teaches large classes covering subjects that are covered on bar examinations around the country. In two of the last three semesters, she has had more students in her classes than any other Texas A&M Law faculty member. The terms students use most commonly to describe Professor Penrose’s teaching include “amazing,” “brilliant,” “enthusiastic,” and “inspiring.” Her student evaluations are full of comments praising her availability outside of class and her passion for the law. Several students complimented her energy and noted that her enthusiasm for the subjects she teaches is contagious. As one student remarked, “I fell in love with Constitutional Law because of her.” Another indicated that she “teaches for both class and life in general.” The commendations she has received are remarkable considering her demanding standards and teaching rigor. One student noted, “I would have felt like I let her down if I wasn’t prepared” for class. Another remarked, “I looked forward to her class and often felt disappointed when it ended.” Another student sums it up with, “Penrose skyrocketed past all my hopes and expectations for this class….I can’t wait to take another class with her!”
College: School of Law
Award Level: Teaching
John
Penson
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 2011
Since Dr. John Penson joined the faculty in 1975, he has taught several courses at the undergraduate and graduate level, including teaching the department’s introductory course to more than 7,000 students. He has also provided teaching leadership by co-chairing the committee appointed by the deans of COALS and Mays Business School that developed our popular Agribusiness major and cochaired the joint committee to explore establishing the recently approved Ph.D. program in Agribusiness with the Mays Business School. A prolific author of textbooks and research publications, he has received many prestigious awards for research and teaching, including the national Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award from the American Agricultural Economics Association. He has advised seven students completing their senior honors thesis in the University Undergraduate Fellows Program and tutored the department’s Academic Quiz Bowl teams preparing for national competition. Dr. Penson served as technical advisor to the Bryan High School Federal Reserve Challenge Team, which won the national Federal Reserve Challenge championship multiple times. Internationally, he served as Visiting Foreign Distinguished Professor at Korea University, presented an invited short course at Japan’s Kyushu University, has taught in the joint Masters Program between TAMU and Universidad Del Valle De Guatemala the past 15 years, and has taught in similar programs in Ecuador and Nicaragua. He received the Outstanding Alumnus Award from Southern Illinois University and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
One former student wrote, “The best learning tool that Dr. Penson implements in his class is the team concept of learning. Dr. Penson breaks his class into small groups to work on team projects that he assigns. This technique allows students to build relationships outside of class and learn from one another.”
Another former student wrote, “… I developed a significant interest in economics and its impact on agriculture as Dr. Penson took us through the first semester of our introductory class. His course had a great deal to do with the fact that I never once changed my major and graduated with a degree in Agribusiness in the fall of 2009.”
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Teaching
John
Penson, Jr.
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1984
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Research
John
Penson, Jr.
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1992
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Teaching
William
Perry
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1999
College: Executive VP and Provost
Award Level: Administration
David
Peterson
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 2016
Dave Peterson, professor of biochemistry and biophysics, earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University. He joined the faculty of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in 1981 after completing postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco. In addition to teaching and maintaining a successful research program, Dr. Peterson serves as the associate department head for undergraduate programs. In this role, he led efforts to revise the Biochemistry and Genetics curricula and obtain accreditation for the B.S. in biochemistry from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Texas A&M is now one of only 38 universities to receive this recognition of the quality and rigor of its undergraduate program. His nominator says that as a teacher and mentor, Dr. Peterson is phenomenally successful. He has received numerous teaching and mentoring awards at Texas A&M, including the Wells Fargo Honors Student Faculty Mentor Award (twice) and The Association of Former Students College-Level Teaching Award (twice). This year, he won national recognition by receiving the Excellence in Advising Award from the National Academic Advising Association. A former student now in medical school described Dr. Peterson as “an outstanding educator and a long-term mentor.” Another student wrote, “One of the first people I encountered at Texas A&M University was Dr. David Peterson.… My first impression of this obviously brilliant scientist was how kind and helpful he was to all the nervous and confused freshman.… He said the same thing on that first day as he has said in every class I have had with him: if one person has a question, others do as well, so do not be afraid to ask.… He also adds some fun to the lecture; in the biochemistry class, he told us his favorite movie is Love Potion #9 because the biochemist gets the girl.”
College: College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Teaching
Jeanette
Phariss
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1983
College: Academic Affairs
Award Level: Staff
Jeanette
Phariss
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 2003
College: Assistant Provost
Award Level: Administration
Clinton
Phillips
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1987
College: Administration
Award Level: Staff
Don
Phillips
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1990
College: Engineering
Award Level: Research
Timothy
Phillips
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1988
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Research
Timothy
Phillips
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 2006
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Research
Donald
Piermattei
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1966
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Teaching
Leonard
Pike
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1996
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Research
Michelle D.
Pine ’02
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 2018
Michelle D. Pine earned bachelor’s and doctor of veterinary medicine degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She was a practicing veterinarian and a USDA Veterinary Medical Officer before coming to Texas A&M to earn her doctorate in toxicology. While a USDA Veterinary Medical Officer, she received a Certificate of Merit. As a doctoral student, she received a Texas A&M Regents Graduate Fellowship. Dr. Pine excelled in research during her graduate and postdoctoral training, publishing 14 research manuscripts and, in 2006, receiving the best reproductive toxicology publication of the year award from the European Teratology Society. Dr. Pine joined the faculty of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in 2004. At that time, she began to focus more on her passion for teaching. Since then, she has been awarded a Texas A&M Teaching Excellence Award and was one of several College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences faculty members selected to participate in the national Bayer Animal Health Communication Project Faculty Program. She has also been honored by Texas A&M students as a Fish Camp namesake. Dr. Pine has been awarded several grants for teaching innovations, including an Instructional Technology Services grant, “Flipping Your Course,” which she very successfully accomplished, and a Texas A&M Classroom Instructional Technology Matching Grant to improve Gross Anatomy educational instruction in the college. In 2015, Dr. Pine and her collaborators received a Texas A&M University Tier One Grant. Dr. Pine has fostered advancement of both research and teaching through her active participation in numerous professional organizations, including The American Association of Veterinary Anatomists, the Society of Toxicology and the Society for Neuroscience.
College: Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences
Award Level: Teaching
Charles
Plum
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1983
College: Business
Award Level: Student Relations
Valery
Pokrovsky
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 2001
College: Science
Award Level: Research
Udo Walter
Pooch
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 1974
College: Engineering
Award Level: Teaching
Christopher
Pope
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 2011
Dr. Christopher N. Pope has been at TAMU for 22 years. His earned his Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1980. He was the recipient of the Tv son Medal and the Rayleigh Prize, from the University of Cambridge, and was awarded First Prize by the Gravity Research Foundation. He has been the recipient of the TAMU Physics Department Graduate Teaching Award four times, and the TAMU College of Science Award for Teaching Excellence. He was appointed as Honorary Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. His research is principally concerned with the unification of the fundamental forces in nature, and especially attempts to unify quantum theory with Einstein’s general theory of relativity to give a consistent theory of quantum gravity. This work included some of the earliest applications of topological methods to the area of quantum gravity in the l970s; the spontaneous dimensional reduction of supergravitv and superstrings to obtain four-dimensional physics from higher dimensions: and the derivation of string-theory corrections to Einstein’s general relativity. Subsequent research has included studies of duality symmetries in supergravities: the construction of manifolds of exceptional holonomy and their applications in M-theory compactifications; obtaining the exact solutions for rotating black holes in supergravity and higher-dimensional general relativity; the construction of the largest known class of Einstein-Sasaki manifolds for applications in string-theory compactifications; and new results on black-hole thermodynamics in higher dimensions. He has over 340 publications, with more than 275 in refereed journals: more than 11.800 citations to published work: and an index” exceeding 53.
One student wrote, “Dr. Pope’s problems are challenging and help develop physical intuition and mathematical comfort. Students seeking guidance to homework problems find Dr. Pope’s office door wide open. In his office he calmly guides student thinking. He answers questions patiently but demands that students solve the problems themselves.”
Another former student wrote, “It was his teaching that made me finally decide on a career in physics, and what I learned in his class is till beneficial to me today. Now I am teaching physics myself.”
College: Science
Award Level: Teaching
Jay
Porter
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 2007
Jay Porter joined the Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution Department in 1998 and is currently the Program Coordinator for the Electronics and the Telecommunications Engineering Technology Programs. He is a “three-time Aggie graduate” including a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. He has developed and taught eight different courses, all of which integrate traditional lectures with hands-on learning experiences. Many of the new course/laboratory developments have included major grants from industry leaders such as Texas Instruments, National Instruments, and Freescale Semiconductor (formerly Motorola) to establish state-of-the-art laboratories.
Dr. Porter possesses a unique capability to integrate his research and professional activities into providing students with a richer and more real-world educational experience, thus better preparing them for the demanding careers they will pursue after graduation. His recent efforts have focused on developing an engineering entrepreneurial educational experience, or E4, for undergraduate students. Once fully implemented, E4 will create a technology incubator dedicated to providing undergraduate students with an opportunity to take their intellectual property and develop it into a new business venture.
College: Engineering
Award Level: Teaching
Dan
Posey
direct link to this listing
Year Awarded: 2007
Dr. Posey graduated from Texas A&M University in 1982. He was in private general veterinary practice in rural Madison County for 20 years. Dr. Posey received training in beef cattle production management through the Great Plains Veterinary Educational Center in Clay Center, Nebraska in 1996/1997. He joined the faculty of the Veterinary School at Texas A&M University in March 2002, where he instructs senior veterinary students through clinical service to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Agricultural Programs. The Texas A&M Veterinary School and T.D.C.J. have had a 38 year relationship in the training of veterinary students thru the care and service to their livestock. The T.D.C.J. Agricultural Division has a diverse animal population that consists of 16,000 cattle, 26,000 swine, 1.500 horses, 1,500 canine and 320,000 chickens. The primary objective of the TDCJ service rotation is to afford the professional veterinary students the opportunity to develop skills in veterinary primary care and client service.
Dr. Posey is boarded by the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners in beef cattle practice. He serves as the Chief of Food Animal Medicine in the Large Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University.
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Student Relations