Glenda
Byrns'07
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Year Awarded: 2018
Glenda Byrns earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Southwest Texas State University and a doctorate from Texas A&M University. She joined the faculty of the College of Education and Human Development in 2005. Dr. Byrns has served in leadership capacities at the department and college level. As the program coordinator for the Undergraduate Special Education (SPED) Program, Dr. Byrns coordinated a state-mandated degree plan revision that required realignment of courses. When serving as the college’s coordinator for educator preparation, she authored the differential tuition for undergraduate teacher preparation proposal that helped to fund scholarships, travel-abroad programs, and supervision for students in field-based experiences. Additionally, she facilitated the collection and organization of data for accreditation. Currently, she serves as the Special Education Division Chair and as the associate department head for academic affairs in the Department of Educational Psychology. Dr. Byrns teaches undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in both face-to-face and online formats. SPED 630, a synchronous distance education course that Dr. Byrns teaches, has received Quality Matters (QM) designation. Additionally, Dr. Byrns has been recognized as a Texas A&M Exemplary Distance Educator. Every semester, she takes undergraduate SPED students to a day-long internship in a large urban school district where they engage with students and teachers and observe educational supports. To advance the use of technology in classroom settings, Dr. Byrns distributes iPads to students in upper-level SPED courses. Additionally, she developed iBooks for students’ use in flipped classes. Dr. Byrns received the Student Led Award for Teaching Excellence and was a Howdy Camp namesake.
College: Department of Educational Psychology
Award Level: Teaching
Garland Hampton
Cannon
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Year Awarded: 1972
College: Liberal Arts
Award Level: Research
Oral
Capps
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Year Awarded: 2015
Oral Capps, Jr., Regents Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics, earned his Ph.D. from Virginia Tech. After stints teaching at Virginia Tech and the University of Minnesota, he joined the faculty of the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences in 1986. He is nationally recognized for his scholarship in demand analysis, econometric modeling, and forecasting methodology with large data sets. But, the students in the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences recognize him as one of the best teachers at Texas A&M University. As a leader in agricultural economics, Dr. Capps works closely with professional organizations in the food-producing industries. The major upside of all these connections is his ability to bring real world scenarios to the classroom and show students the most current industry developments. Dr. Capps has been a master teacher and superb mentor to undergraduate and graduate students during his almost 30 years at Texas A&M. He has taught more than 90 sections in 7 subject matter areas to approximately 6,000 students! Most students are familiar with Dr. Capps as the teacher for Introductory Agricultural Economics. He volunteered to teach this large course because he understands how critical the course is to freshmen students. His passion for the course led him to write an Introduction to Agricultural Economics textbook, which is now in its sixth edition. In the classroom, Dr. Capps brings lecture material to life, helping students to remember and apply the concepts discussed. A supporter says students leaving Dr. Capps’ class possess “knowledge they can leverage in their future careers and lives.” His nominators sum up, saying that an excellent teacher brings out the best in students. Dr. Capps cares about them as individuals, their learning, and their future success. He is an “amazing teacher and true friend of the students.”
College: College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Teaching
Oral
Capps, Jr.
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Year Awarded: 1995
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Teaching
David
Carlson
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Year Awarded: 1992
College: Liberal Arts
Award Level: Teaching
Leland
Carlson
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Year Awarded: 2008
Lee Carlson joined the Aerospace Engineering Department of Texas A&M in 1969. In addition to teaching and research, he has served as Assistant and then Associate Dean of Engineering from 1981 thru 1984, and as Undergraduate Advisor and Director of Undergraduate Aerospace Engineering Programs from 1996 until 2004. Dr. Carlson is widely recognized for his research on transonic airfoil design methods and high altitude entry vehicle flow fields. He is a Fellow in both the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the American Society of Engineering Education.
Dr. Carlson’s first love, however, has always been teaching. In the endorsement letters, one individual wrote, “His passion for teaching is unparalleled…In the classroom he is exceedingly articulate and inexhaustibly energetic…It is not uncommon to find him helping students with challenging assignments beyond the hours expected of even the best professors.” Another wrote, “He puts in many extra hours preparing course materials as well as interacting with students. His classroom demeanor is that of a teacher who truly cares, and his door is always open…I have never known a professor who could so easily keep my attention and show the importance of the subject matter…He brings real-world applications into the learning environment.” Finally a colleague said of him, “His teaching style is really quite simple: Take teaching seriously, be prepared, create a classroom climate where students want to learn, expect the best of students, encourage classroom participation, and make the course content interesting and relevant to engineering practice.”
College: Engineering
Award Level: Teaching
Leland
Carlson
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Year Awarded: 1987
College: Engineering
Award Level: Teaching
Zerle
Carpenter
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Year Awarded: 1970
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Teaching
Megan
Carpenter
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Year Awarded: 2016
Megan Carpenter is a professor of law and one of the original faculty members of the Texas A&M School of Law, as well as the founding director of the Center for Law and Intellectual Property (CLIP), which has become a flagship program of the law school. She previously served on the faculty of the Texas Wesleyan University law school and in private practice. She earned an M.S. and a J.D. from West Virginia University and an LL.M. from the National University of Ireland. She is a nationally known expert in intellectual property with particular interest in entrepreneurship and the arts. She chairs the Academic Committee of the International Trademark Association and the Law and Entrepreneurship Special Interest Group for the United States Association for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (USASBE). Her nominators wrote that she is committed to the students’ learning and professional development beyond the classroom. She has been instrumental in providing students with hands-on experience by creating legal clinics that enable students to practice intellectual property and business law on behalf of actual clients, including collaborations with student entrepreneurs and inventors at Startup Aggieland on the campus in College Station. This is the first full-service clinic in legal education to cater particularly to a university’s own student entrepreneurs. Professor Carpenter has also established a mentoring program, called Need to Know, in which she encourages law students to conduct workshops that educate underserved segments of the community on relevant legal issues. This program has been a valuable way for students to develop their expertise as future professionals and share the knowledge they have gained in law school while serving the larger community. To date, students have educated more than 1,000 entrepreneurs, artists, and musicians.
College: School of Law
Award Level: Graduate Mentoring
Kevin
Carreathers
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Year Awarded: 1991
College: Multicultural Services
Award Level: Student Relations
Raymond J.
Carroll
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Year Awarded: 1994
College: Science
Award Level: Research
Raymond J.
Carroll
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Year Awarded: 2004
College: Science
Award Level: Research
George
Carter
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Year Awarded: 1978
College: Geosciences
Award Level: Research
George
Carter
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Year Awarded: 1972
College: Geosciences
Award Level: Teaching
Neville
Carter
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Year Awarded: 1984
College: Science
Award Level: Research
Tammi
Caskey
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Year Awarded: 1993
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Staff
Lavelle
Castle
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Year Awarded: 1965
College: Staff
Award Level: Student Relations
Pierre J.
Catala
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Year Awarded: 2002
College: Engineering
Award Level: Teaching
James C.
Cathey '91
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Year Awarded: 2015
James Cathey earned his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University. Chief among his many roles is extension wildlife specialist for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service—a role he fulfills as associate professor and associate department head in the Department of Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences. He joined the department in 2002 and AgriLife Extension in 2005. He has authored 68 publication and fostered development of many social media outlets. He provides expertise to Texas landowners, agricultural producers, and county extension agents in 71 counties, often about grassland restoration, northern bobwhite, wild pigs, Rio Grande wild turkey, and urban deer. He is a member of the Wildlife Society and past president of the Texas chapter. He has been Texas Wildlife Association director since 2008 and serves as an instructor for education events in its Conservation Legacy program. Dr. Cathey provides leadership to the Texas Master Naturalists program, which has received several national and state awards. His technical articles have been recognized by the Texas Section of the Society of Range Management and the Texas Chapter of the Wildlife Society, while his teamwork earned the 2014 national extension “Working Differently in Extension” award for achievements of the Feral Hogg Community of Practice. His nominator says Dr. Cathey is “energetic, personable, highly motivated, and committed to excellence,” and an “exemplary extension educator with exceptional mastery of wildlife science, outstanding communication skills, extraordinary productivity, resilient team leadership, and commitment to outreach education.” A supporter credits his leadership for the success of the state’s award-winning “rainwater harvesting task force.” Another supporter concludes, “…the impact of his vision, innovative strategies, and accomplishments is seen now and will continue in the years to come from the next generation of landowners and natural resource professionals he has prepared and empowered to ‘carry the torch.’”
College: College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Extension, Outreach, Continuing Ed, & Prof Dev
Jerald A.
Caton
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Year Awarded: 2008
Professor Caton has been teaching at TAMU since September 1979 in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He teaches in the areas of thermodynamics, heat transfer and fluid mechanics with applications concerning engines and power plants. Over this period of time, Professor Caton has continued to strive to be a more effective instructor, to share his passion for these subjects, and to motivate his students. He is highly regarded by his students, and his evaluations reflect his conscientious and rigorous teaching style. Comments typically made by his students are that Professor Caton is well-organized, enthusiastic, and knows his material. Some students rate him highly even though they note that his grading is uncommonly strict. A Fellow of both ASME and SAE, he manages to blend results from his research with the subject material to both illustrate relevance and to provide motivation, and his student appreciate the helpfulness of the “real-world” examples.
Professor Caton is a leader who has developed new courses, teaches undergraduates well, mentors graduate students and junior faculty, and excels with nationally important research and study. He is an award-winner who has received the Society of Automotive Engineers national Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award (1990) and the departmental Peggy L. and Charles L. Brittan (’65) Teaching Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching (2000).
College: Engineering
Award Level: Teaching
Thomas
Champney
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Year Awarded: 1997
College: Medicine
Award Level: Teaching
Ping
Chang
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Year Awarded: 2003
College: Geosciences
Award Level: Research
Robert S.
Chapkin
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Year Awarded: 2017
Robert Chapkin is also a Regents Professor and University Faculty Fellow in the Program in Integrative Nutrition and Complex Diseases of the Department of Nutrition & Food Science. He joined the faculty of the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in 1988. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, where he also completed postdoctoral work. Dr. Chapkin is an expert in dietary chemoprevention of colon cancer and inflammatory bowel diseases. He has made highly significant contributions to cancer chemoprevention and membrane biology with specific emphasis in intestinal stem cells and their modulation by environmental/botanical agents, and the development of novel noninvasive Systems Biology-based methodologies to assess crosstalk between the gut microbiome and host and its application to translational research. He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed articles in nutrition, immunology, membrane biology, cancer biology, and predictive biomarkers. His numerous awards include the R35 Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute, the Osborne and Mendel Award from the American Society for Nutrition, and The Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award—Research. His nominators say that excellence for teaching and research faculty can be measured in a variety of ways, including peer-reviewed publications and scholarly contributions. But for Dr. Chapkin, excellence extends beyond those standard metrics to include the large number of students, post-docs and young faculty protégés he has mentored. They wrote, “He not only trained these individuals in the knowledge necessary, but also served as an excellent example of the type of motivation, acumen, and enthusiasm necessary to be successful and reach their professional goals.”
College: Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences
Award Level: Graduate Mentoring
Robert
Chapkin
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Year Awarded: 2011
Dr. Robert Chapkin’s outstanding research program has been recognized repeatedly with an impressive list of awards which places him in the highest echelons of his profession including: NIH "First Award", July 1989 June 1994; PEW National Nutrition Program Faculty Scholar, 1991-1992; American Society for Nutritional Sciences (ASNS) Bio Serv Award in Experimental Animal Nutrition, 1996; Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Faculty Fellow Award (TAES), 2000; Texas A&M University Faculty Fellow Award, 2001-2005; Sigma Xi Distinguished Scientist Award, Texas A&M University Chapter, 2006; Senior Faculty Fellow Award, TAES, 2007; Vegetable & Fruit Improvement Center, Texas AgriLife Research Director’s Award, 2009; and the Texas A&M University System Regents Fellow, 2010.
His expertise spans the fields of integrative nutrition, cancer biology, and immunology. He has published 167 peer reviewed manuscripts, including 12 invited reviews, written 21 book chapters, and published 216 abstracts. The fact that his papers have been cited over 4,500 times and have an h-index of 37 clearly demonstrates that he has had a significant impact and has achieved the highest level of scholarship and academic leadership. Dr. Chapkin has also served on the editorial boards of five scientific journals, i.e., Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids (1989-Present), Journal of Nutrition (2002-2004), Chemistry and Physics of Lipids (2005- present), Cell Communication Insights (2008-present), and the British Journal of Nutrition (2010-present). He has given 85 invited talks at academic institutions, as well as national and international meetings. His research program is one of the most well-funded, innovative and productive programs in the College. He has received $10.5 million as PI ($32+ million as PI, co-PI and collaborator combined) in funding from the NIH, USDA and other agencies. Over the past five years, Dr. Chapkin has received funds that amount to over $6 million as PI and $22 million overall.
College: College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Award Level: Research
Haipeng "Allan"
Chen
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Year Awarded: 2016
Haipeng “Allan” Chen is associate professor of marketing, Mays Research Fellow, and director of the Ph.D. Program in Marketing. He joined the faculty of the Mays Business School in 2007 after earning his Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities). He conducts research in the area of behavioral decision theory, and his research interests focus on examining decision biases of individual consumers and managers, and their economic and cultural ramifications. Dr. Chen enjoys a reputation as an outstanding teacher at both the undergraduate and graduate levels who upholds high academic standards; demonstrates a high level of commitment, dedication, and passion for excellence; makes a concerted effort to provide the most relevant and current knowledge to his students; and motivates his students to be eager and committed learners for life. One former student wrote that every time she stepped into to Dr. Chen’s class, she knew three things would happen. She would learn something she was actually interested in. She would feel like a better student. And Dr. Chen would give the lesson his all. She concluded that his focus was not just to make his students better marketers but instead to make them better people. A doctoral student commented that Dr. Chen “draws every student’s attention with his clearly organized lectures, sharp thinking, expressive body language, and a friendly smile.” Another former student wrote that, in her marketing role at Union Pacific Railroad, she uses the lessons she learned from Dr. Chen on a daily basis. She also lauded Dr. Chen for making learning “exhilarating and enjoyable.”
College: Mays Business School
Award Level: Teaching
Jianer
Chen
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Year Awarded: 2007
Jianer Chen received a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (New York University) in 1987, and a Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from Columbia University in 1990. At that time he joined the Department of Computer Science at Texas A&M University where he is currently a Professor and the Head of Graduate Admissions. Dr. Chen assisted Department Head, Dr. Valerie Taylor, in initiating a Graduate Student Annual Review program and an Invited Graduate Admission program for the department. He has developed a teaching technique MIIP (Motivation-Intuition-Interaction-Application) that successfully motivates students’ desire to learn.
Dr. Chen’s research interests include theoretical computer science, computer graphics, computer networks, and bioinformatics. He has published over 150 research papers in these areas, including over 60 journal papers and over 80 referenced conference papers. His research has been continuously supported by the National Science Foundation. He has received numerous research and teaching awards, including being a four-time recipient of the Graduate Teaching Excellence Award, which is voted on by graduate students in the department.
College: Engineering
Award Level: Teaching
Dara
Childs
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Year Awarded: 1993
College: Engineering
Award Level: Research
Bhanu
Chowdhary
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Year Awarded: 2006
College: Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Science
Award Level: Research