Director of Faculty Recognition

Published January 5, 2022

Dear Colleagues,

It gives me great pleasure to announce that, as of January 5, 2022, Dr. Maria Almanza has joined the Office of Faculty Affairs as our new Director of Faculty Recognition. In support of UB’s goal to increase the number of prestigious national and international awards received by faculty, the director is responsible for working with faculty, staff and academic leaders to identify, support and manage faculty award nominations.

Dr. Almanza is a national leader in the field of faculty recognition and comes to UB with several years of success in increasing faculty awards and recognition at North Carolina State University. In her previous position as Director of External Faculty Awards and Recognition at NCSU, Dr. Almanza worked closely with faculty and academic leaders to enhance nominations for prestigious faculty awards. Her efforts led to increased faculty awards and honors from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the National Academy of Inventors. Most notably, working with faculty and department chairs at NCSU, Dr. Almanza coordinated the successful nominations of 10 newly elected American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows, a remarkable 400% increase from the previous year in the total number of Fellows at NCSU.

Describing herself as having a “passion for professional development and writing,” Dr. Almanza honed her talents in communication and writing serving as the Marion Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology from 2017-19 where she taught multimodal communication and literature. Prior to her postdoctoral work, she also served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Lynchburg College and Randolph College from 2014-17. Dr. Almanza received both her PhD and MA from UB’s Department of English.

Through her experience as a scholar and as assistant/associate editor for humanities journals, as well as a recipient of several honorific awards herself, including a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar and a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, Dr. Almanza possesses the broad base knowledge and skills needed to successfully work with faculty and academic leaders in our efforts to increase the national and international recognition of UB’s outstanding faculty. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Almanza back to UB and to this exciting new role.  

Regards,

 

Robert Granfield, PhD
Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs