UB honors exceptional scholars, innovative teacher

Eleven of UB’s best and brightest teachers and researchers have been named recipients of the university’s 2015 Exceptional Scholar and Teaching Innovation awards.

All will be honored at the annual Celebration of Faculty/Staff Excellence, to be held on Oct. 22.

The Exceptional Scholars Award honors faculty members for their outstanding research performance at different stages of their careers. There are two awards: Sustained Achievement Awards for senior scholars and Young Investigator Awards for untenured scholars who received their terminal degree within the past eight years. Both awards recognize work that has “garnered public and/or professional accolades beyond the norm.”

Sustained Achievement recipients are selected based on their body of work over a number of years. The award is not meant to serve as a lifetime achievement honor, but rather as recognition for outstanding performance in a recent segment of a scholar’s career.

Recipients for 2015 are Chester H. Fox, professor, Department of Family Medicine; Zonglu Hua, professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Janet R. Morrow, professor, Department of Chemistry; Norma J. Nowak, professor, Department of Biochemistry, and executive director, UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences; Noreen Williams, professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology; and Jinhui Xu, professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

The Young Investigator Award is presented to untenured researchers whose work has garnered universal acclaim or been completed under the auspices of a prestigious fellowship grant.

Young investigator recipients for 2015 are Iman Borazjani, assistant professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; David Dietz, assistant professor, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology; Changhyun Kwon, assistant professor, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering; and Xuefeng Ren, Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health.

UB’s Teaching Innovation Award recognizes faculty members who have used new methods and approaches teaching that have had a demonstrable effect on enhancing student-learning outcomes, including innovative uses of educational technology. All UB faculty members are eligible for the award.

The Teaching Innovation recipient is William A. Prescott Jr., clinical associate professor and vice chair, Department of Pharmacy Practice.