Distinguished Awards for Distinguished Individuals

University of Washington Tacoma has a diverse faculty who are dedicated to student success, and frequently presents work of high caliber. Their hard work and dedication do not go unrecognized, and in the 2015 Distinguished Teaching Award and the Distinguished Research Award a number of faculty members were nominated. After deliberation from the review com­mittees which includes chairs Yonn Di­erwechter (Distinguished Research Award) and Donald Chinn (Distin­guished Teaching Award), two nominees were chosen for the awards.

Each year, the University of Wash­ington honors several faculty members for their work with students. Recipients of the Distinguished Teaching Award are chosen based on a variety of criteria in­cluding but not limited to mastery of the subject matter; ability to engage students both within and outside of the classroom; and innovations in course and curricu­lum design. This year, the recipient was Dr. Ellen Moore. Dr. Moore has been a member of the faculty in Interdisciplin­ary Arts & Sciences since 2009, and teaches across the Communications major. Dr. Moore is noted for the con­nections that she has made between classrooms and

the community. Last year she led a competition to reduce carbon footprint in our community and con­nected it to her Contemporary Environ­ment Issues & the Media class, and led the UW to grant a Green Seed Fund to further the research. The committee dis­cussed her “integration of scholarship into her classes, her care for her students, her ability to connect community with the classroom, and her excellence in the classroom,” according to an email from Interim Vice Chancellor Bill Kunz. In response to this award, Dr. Moore says, “I am thrilled to win the award. As a third-generation teacher, I am honored to have my dedication to this unique and thriving campus recognized.”

The Distinguished Research Award is given annually, and the purpose of this award is to recognize a faculty member who has achieved a record of notable scholarship or creative activity, who has generated new knowledge or creativity that impacts their intellectual discipline, and who has contributed to the intel­lectual climate of the UW Tacoma cam­pus and its communities. The 2015 re­cipient, Dr. Peter Horak, has been a faculty member since 2003, and contrib­utes to both the Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences and The Institute of Technol­ogy. He primarily researches discrete mathematics and theoretical computer sciences, where he has published around 90 scientific papers. The review commit­tee discusses, “it would be more than enough to excel in only one major area. To produce exceptionally high quality work in two major fields of scholarship is simply extraordinary.” Dr. Horak has also given invited talks in over 25 coun­tries on six continents.

There was a long list of nominees for both awards, and ranks ranged from lecturers to professors. University of Washington Tacoma has many extraor­dinary faculty members, who commit to the greater success of this campus.