This article is from the archives of the UB Reporter.
News

16 receive Chancellor’s Awards

By SUE WUETCHER
Published: May 17, 2012

Seven faculty members, three librarians and six staff members are recipients of 2012 SUNY Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence.

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service recognizes “the consistently superior service contributions of teaching faculty” sustained over a period of time. This year’s recipient is Mark Lema, professor and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching honors those who consistently demonstrate superb teaching at the undergraduate, graduate or professional level. Recipients are Jessie P.H. Poon, professor in the Department of Geography, College of Arts and Sciences; Carine M. Mardorossian, associate professor in the Department of English, CAS; Charles Lindsey, assistant professor in the Department of Marketing, School of Management; and Daniel Hess, associate professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Architecture and Planning.

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities recognizes the work of those who engage actively in scholarly and creative pursuits beyond their teaching responsibilities. Recipients are Anthony Auerbach, professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and Jonathan Bird, professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Librarianship recognizes “skill in librarianship; service to the campus, the university and to the field; scholarship and professional growth, and major professional achievements.” Recipients are Laura Taddeo, collections coordinator in Lockwood Library; Dean Hendrix, coordinator of education services in the Health Sciences Library; and Joseph Gerken, reference librarian in the Charles B. Sears Law Library.

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service honors professional staff performance excellence “both within and beyond the position.” Recipients are Robert Scalise, registrar and assistant director of exhibitions and collections, UB Art Galleries; Hadar Borden, administrative director of the Undergraduate Academies; and Nancy Recupero, chief financial and information officer, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Classified Service recognizes classified staff members who have consistently demonstrated superlative performance within and beyond their position. Recipients are Betsy Abraham, secretary in the Department of Geography, College of Arts and Sciences; Evelyn Hufford, library clerk, University Libraries—Access Services; and Mary Schnepf, secretary in the Department of Psychology, CAS.

Betsy Abraham joined the UB geography department in 1995 as undergraduate secretary. She now serves as secretary for student services, assisting both graduate and undergraduate students in all aspects of their academic careers.

Among her duties are preparing application dossiers for master’s and doctoral students, auditing undergraduate student progress, maintaining all statistical data on student histories, assisting with the departmental newsletter and communicating with alumni via email and the department’s Facebook page.

She also has been honored by the Undergraduate Geography Student Association UGSA for her “continued support and assistance.”

A widely recognized leader in the field of neuroscience, Anthony Auerbach has revolutionized the study of molecular biological processes, with broad-ranging implications for medical, scientific and mathematical research.

His cutting-edge research encompasses not only biophysics, but also pharmacology, enzymology, structural biology, molecular biology, electrophysiology and mathematical modeling.

A prolific scholar, Auerbach has published eight book chapters and more than 80 journal articles, including 10 papers published in first-tier scientific journals—Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—since 1999.

Auerbach has received numerous prestigious awards; most notably, the Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health twice in the past 12 years. The Javits award provides up to seven years of research funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders.

An expert in the field of nanoelectronics, Jonathan Bird’s most recent research focuses on developing technologies that integrate advances in nanotechnology to create systems with commercial opportunities ranging from medical diagnostics, homeland security and environmental monitoring to telecommunications, optical computing and biotechnology.

Since joining the UB faculty in 2004, Bird has secured seven new research grants, including a prestigious NIRT grant of more than $1 million and a PIRE grant for nearly $4 million from the National Science Foundation to establish cooperative research and education in the U.S. and Japan on nanostructures.

He has more than 150 peer-reviewed publications in the top journals in his field, including Applied Physics Letters, Physical Review B, Journal of Applied Physics, and Physical Review Letters.

As administrative director of the Undergraduate Academies, Hadar Borden oversees academic and social programming that integrate three broad themes that seek to address 21st century social issues from an interdisciplinary perspective: civic engagement, global perspectives and research exploration. Working with faculty and staff, she has helped to improve retention of first- to second-year students, create the experience of a small residential college on a campus serving more than 28,000 students and engage more senior faculty members in shaping an innovative first-year student experience.

A UB graduate with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geography, Borden worked for two years in Undergraduate Admissions and for four years as an academic adviser in the Honors College before assuming her current position with the Undergraduate Academies in 2008.

Joseph Gerken, reference librarian in the UB Law library, consults with UB Law faculty and students to help them develop research strategies, as well as teaches research skills to first-year law students in the Legal Analysis Writing and Research program. He also developed an upper-level research course for law students.

He is member of numerous committees at the university, as well as in the larger regional and national professional legal library communities. Among his most prestigious appointments on the national level is his service as chair of the American Association of Law Libraries’ Lexis-Nexis Call for Papers Committee.

As liaison to 18 clinical and seven research departments in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and the Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, Dean Hendrix provides support services to 2,500 students and 3,000 faculty members across multiple campuses, hospitals and other clinical settings. He provides instruction to medical students and residents, serving as an invaluable connection on the topic of medical informatics between the medical community and resources in the Health Sciences Library.

He has served on more than 20 university-wide committees, as well as participated in national and regional professional associations, including a prestigious membership on the editorial board for the Medical Library Association’s website. He also recently was elected vice president of the Western New York Library Resources Council.

An expert in the field of urban and regional planning, Daniel Hess teaches courses that explore public policy, design, history, technology and branches of the social sciences. He incorporates site visits, field projects, invited speakers and real-world situations that prepare students to apply their learning in professional settings.

Hess’ research, writing and teaching examine how urban policies influence travel behavior and how urban spatial dynamics can best be analyzed methodologically. His work also focuses on access to employment for welfare recipients and low-income persons, and he has conducted evaluations of transportation policy and practice in California and New York.

He is particularly interested in transit-system performance and alternative transit funding arrangements, and has conducted evaluations of transit-pass programs.

A 2010-11 Fulbright Scholar at Tallimm University of Technology in Estonia, Hess also was a visiting National Endowment for the Humanities scholar at Columbia University in 2011.

Evelyn Hufford is circulation supervisor for the Health Sciences and Architecture and Planning libraries, responsible for daily operations of the libraries.

She was involved in the development and implementation of the Libraries’ first computerized circulation system in the mid-1980s, an updated system in the mid-1990s and the current library system in 2006.

A member of the Circulation Services Management Team, Hufford helps establish policies and procedures for all the University Libraries.

Mark Lema is an internationally recognized expert in neuropathic pain, with a career-long focus on developing and teaching new pain-relief techniques.

He has published widely, contributing more than 175 articles in his field. He also has been a member of 10 editorial boards for major journals and served as section editor of the award-winning clinical text The American Society of Anesthesiologists: A Century of Challenges and Progress.

In addition, he has been active in numerous professional organizations, board and state public health councils, including service as president of the American Society of Anesthesiology (2007), the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (2004) and the New York State Society of Anesthesiologists (2001).

In recognition of his superior record of service, Lema has received numerous honors in this field, most recently the prestigious American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Service Award, the highest tribute for service to the organization.

A UB faculty member since 2006, Charles Lindsey is an expert in consumer behavior and has taught courses on the topic at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. His teaching evaluations have consistently earned quantitative ratings of 4.7 out of 5—highest of any faculty member in the School of Management, a school with a number of recipients of the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Lindsey has published six leading articles in the past five years in the most prestigious journals in his field. In addition to his full publication agenda and teaching load, he has made 10 conference presentations, six invited presentations, served on the program committee of a prestigious conference in consumer behavior and acts as a reviewer for two leading journals in marketing and one in psychology.

Jessie Poon’s research interests lie in the areas of international trade and foreign investment, regional economic development and Asian businesses. A UB faculty member since 1998, she teaches a wide range of graduate and undergraduate courses in the Department of Geography, and has devoted much time to student recruitment and retention, advising and curriculum development. She has served on 15 departmental committees and chaired 26 theses and dissertation committees.

Poon is the recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences Excellence in Teaching Award in 2002 and was UB’s 2003 nominee for the national CASE Carnegie Professor of the Year award.

Carine Mardorossian has been recognized as a major figure in the fields of postcolonial theory and feminist criticism. A prolific scholar, she has published one book—and is finishing a second—as well as 19 essays, two of which have been reprinted and one inspired an international conference devoted to the issues it raised.

Within the English department, she has served as director of admissions, director of graduate studies, director of graduate placement and associate chair.

Since joining the UB faculty in 1999, she has served on 21 dissertation committees for which PhDs have been conferred, and currently sits on 22 committees for students who are now in progress toward the degree.

Nancy Recupero joined the UB professional staff in 2002 as assistant for information management at UB Engineering. She was named information manager in 2004 and assistant dean for financial, information and resource management in 2007. She was promoted to chief financial and information officer last month.

In addition to managing the engineering school’s budget, including the non-capital budget for Davis Hall, Recupero provides oversight for the school’s research activities and coordinates the data collection and entry for all school surveys and requests for information. She has worked on several university-wide projects, including UB 2020, the HUB, SIRI (Strategic Information Reporting Initiative) and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol telephone system).

At the UB Art Galleries, Robert Scalise manages teams of professional preparators, contractors and student assistants; supervises construction and preparation of exhibition rooms and furniture; creates and maintains databases and other records cataloguing university holdings; and collaborates with donors, artists and curators on exhibitions in the galleries.

He has been project manager, curator, co-curator and exhibition manager for numerous exhibitions and installations, most notably “Cravens World,” an exhibition of works from a donation of more than 1,100 cultural objects from UB alumna Annette Cravens, and “Discovering James Joyce,” which showcased UB’s rare James Joyce collection.

A UB staff member since 2001, Scalise also was instrumental in drafting UB’s Collection Management Policy.

As coordinator of graduate studies and graduate admissions, Mary Schnepf is responsible for obtaining and tracking academic progress and admission statistics for more than 100 MA and PhD students in the psychology department. She also coordinates all graduate student recruitment events and orientation, as well as processes the approximately 375 applications for admission that come into the department each year.

Schnepf joined the UB classified staff as a keyboard specialist in Procurement Services in 2003, moving to the psychology department in 2008.

Laura Taddeo manages materials budgets for the library collections that support students and faculty in the arts, education, humanities, management, social sciences and social work. She also serves as the UB Libraries’ liaison to the departments of English and Comparative Literature.

Last year, Taddeo collaborated with Stacy Hubbard, associate professor of English, to obtain a grant from the American Library Association and the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop and present five public programs on “Louisa May Alcott: The Woman behind Little Women.”

Taddeo serves on several university-wide and library committees, and edited Biblio-Notes, the newsletter of the Literatures in English section of the Association of College and Research Libraries from 2006-10.