Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education

Jane Blocker
Art History
College of Liberal Arts

Jane Blocker is a renowned scholar of contemporary art and a leader in graduate education at the University of Minnesota. Her reputation as an engaged and generous mentor has made her a sought-after adviser. As Director of Graduate Studies and department chair, she revitalized the graduate program in Art History. As Associate Dean for Arts and Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts, she continues to prioritize the recruitment, training, and support of graduate students.

Penny Edgell
Sociology
College of Liberal Arts

Penny Edgell has served for six years as the Director of Graduate Studies in Sociology. She runs a monthly mentoring group that supports 10-12 graduate students, and participates in several mentoring programs run by professional associations. She has advised 15 doctoral students and served on 36 Ph.D. committees. She favors collaborative research projects that allow her to mentor students in all stages of the research process.

Joseph Kapusta
Physics & Astronomy
College of Science & Engineering

Joseph Kapusta has mentored 19 Ph.D. graduates and 25 postdocs since joining the faculty at the University of Minnesota. They have gone on to distinguished careers in academia, with many of them attaining tenure at prominent research universities, as well as industrial positions. This success was enabled by Professor Kapusta’s advising style and unique strengths as a teacher-scholar, focusing on each mentee’s needs while ensuring that they receive outstanding technical training and connections.

Gordon Legge
Psychology
College of Liberal Arts

Gordon Legge is an inspirational and dedicated mentor and classroom teacher, whose training efforts helped establish an entire subfield that aims to improve the lives of people with visual disabilities. He also helped establish a unique training program on sensory disabilities more generally, and has worked tirelessly, and with great success, to improve and modernize the graduate training program of the Psychology Department as a whole.

Jody Lulich
Veterinary Clinical Sciences
College of Veterinary Medicine

Jody Lulich has been a faculty member in the College of Veterinary Medicine for nearly 30 years, and has received international recognition for his research on canine calcium oxalate urolithiasis, a diagnosis that has high importance for both companion animals and humans. He has received numerous awards for teaching and mentoring and holds the Osborne/Hills Endowed Chair in Nephrology and Urology.

Donald G. Truhlar
Chemistry
College of Science & Engineering

Donald Truhlar has established himself as one of the premier teachers in the Chemistry graduate program. His achievements include advising theses and postdoctoral associates, developing a new degree program and many new courses, obtaining training grants and research grants that have supported many graduate students and postdoctoral associates, and involving these mentees in world-class research. He has been honored three times for his graduate advising.

Medicinal Chemistry
College of Pharmacy

Carston R. Wagner is a passionate, rigorous, and caring medicinal chemistry graduate student advisor and teacher, who has had a tremendous impact on both the professional and personal development of his advisees and the medicinal chemistry graduate program. Through his pioneering efforts, he has expanded and strengthened training and development opportunities for graduate education at the interface of chemistry and biology across the University of Minnesota.

Ann Waltner
History
College of Liberal Arts

Ann Waltner has been a transformative mentor of graduate students for over thirty years. Her work has sustained intellectual bridges to China, and established the University’s presence in Asian history and Asian studies. Moreover she is also an innovator in interdisciplinary graduate training, has dramatically improved graduate funding in her department, and helped recruit and retain diverse graduate cohorts.

James W. Begun
Health Policy & Management 
School of Public Health

Professor James Begun is nationally recognized for his scholarship and leadership in making professional education more student-centered by building curricula around the knowledge, skills, and values required for effective workplace performance. For more than two decades, his engagement with students in management and leadership courses at the University of Minnesota has fostered the careers of thousands of graduates and significantly enhanced their ability to make a positive and significant difference in their organizations and communities.

Daniel Boley
Computer Science & Engineering 
College of Science & Engineering

Professor Daniel Boley is an outstanding leader in interdisciplinary graduate education at the University of Minnesota with a long and distinguished history of development of graduate programs, classroom teaching, and graduate student advising. He has been the lead developer and founding director of the successful Data Science graduate program, which provides a framework for students and faculty throughout the University to work together on mutually beneficial research projects.

Ann Hill Duin
Writing Studies 
College of Liberal Arts

Professor Duin is an outstanding leader of graduate education. In 1992, she led the development of our MA and PhD graduate programs. In addition, Professor Duin has provided exceptional leadership for our professional MS and graduate certificate programs, increasing enrollment and reforming the programs to include online delivery with thoughtfulness and rigor. She has developed strong innovations such as a research collaboratory and advisory board to foster active mentoring and publishing with graduate students.

Megan R. Gunnar
Institute of Child Development
College of Education & Human Development

Megan R. Gunnar, Regents Professor and chair of the Institute of Child Development, studies the neurobiology of stress and its regulation by relationships from infancy through adolescence. Dr.Gunnar has dedicated nearly 40 years of exceptional instruction and program leadership to graduate education at the University of Minnesota. During her tenure, Gunnar has developed new courses and graduate programs while advising and matriculating over 35 students through the Child Psychology PhD program. She has received life-time achievement awards from the American Psychological Association, the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology, and the Society for Child Development. In 2017, Professor Gunnar was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education.

Monica Luciana
Psychology 
College of Liberal Arts

Monica Luciana is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. For over 20 years she has served as an inspiring and impactful mentor to dozens of doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows pursing research on how the brain and behavior interact in the context of psychopathology. As chair of the Psychology Department she initiated transformative changes to the graduate program that fostered greater equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Susan O'Conner-Von
Nursing
School of Nursing

Professor O’Conner-Von is a much beloved University of Minnesota “Beacon of Educational Excellence.” Her excellence spreads beyond the boundaries of the School of Nursing, extending brilliant leadership as DGS of interdisciplinary graduate and professional programs of the Bakken Center for Spirituality and Healing. Her transformational teaching influences students by nurturing their intellectual, ethical and emotional development. Through her design of powerful, engaging “exquisite” learning environments, she reaches student hearts and there leaves her indelible mark.

Julie Schumacher
English 
College of Liberal Arts

Julie Schumacher is not only a world-famous writer but also the dynamic force behind the top-ranked Creative Writing Program at the University of Minnesota. She transformed a small, local program into a program widely recognized as among the top 10 in the country. Students uniformly attest to the lifelong commitment that she makes to the success of her MFA advisees.

Larry F. Wolff
Developmental & Surgical Sciences 
School of Dentistry

Professor Larry Wolff has demonstrated his commitment as a dedicated teacher, clinical educator and scholar at the University of Minnesota. His continuing passion and enthusiasm for presenting quality, informative and thought provoking lectures and clinical instruction in the School of Dentistry is evidenced by nine teaching awards and also the Century Club Professor of the Year Award acknowledging his outstanding teaching. Dr. Wolff’s tenure has been recognized for exemplary graduate and professional education.

Victor H. Barocas
Biomedical Engineering
College of Science & Engineering

Professor Barocas has spent that last 17 years contributing to graduate education at UMN through his role as a classroom teacher, a mentor for M.S. and Ph.D. students, the Director of Graduate Studies for Biomedical Engineering, and a member of the Graduate Education Councils for the College of Science and Engineering and for the University. He is a strong advocate for students and a promoter of student opportunity and diversity.

Bradley G. Clary
Law School

In his thirty-six years of teaching here (including eighteen years of full time teaching), Professor Clary has directed and developed the Law School’s legal writing, appellate advocacy, and trial practice programs. He has educated thousands of students, authored or co-authored five different teaching texts, and served the University, the State of Minnesota, and the national legal community in multiple ways. Teachers don’t come any better.

E. Dan Dahlberg
School of Physics and Astronomy
College of Science & Engineering

Professor Dahlberg has mentored over 25 PhD graduates since joining the faculty of the University of Minnesota. These physicists have gone on to careers in academia as well as a wide spectrum of industrial environments, including their own companies. This success has been enabled by Professor Dahlberg’s unique advising style, which is based on establishing an intellectual partnership with his graduate students while developing a full portfolio of technical and communication skills.

Barbara E. Martinson
Design, Housing, and Apparel
College of Design

Barbara Martinson is a Professor of graphic Design and the Director of Graduate Studies for the Design Graduate Program. She has been instrumental in developing graduate degree plans for the MFA and Ph.D. degrees. She works with her graduate students on issues of visual communication for safety, health, and well-being. Teaching and designing pedagogy are her primary research areas.

Chris Paola
Earth Sciences
College of Science & Engineering

Professor Paola is an innovative teacher and researcher who has mentored many graduate students to success, prioritized excellence in graduate education through leadership of research centers, co-created a unique graduate course in stream restoration, and established an international faculty-graduate student exchange program. He shares his most promising ideas with students, emphasizing cooperation and high ethical standards. He encourages risk-taking, learning from failure, and looking foolish in the service of curiosity, improvisational thought, and creative inquiry.

Robert E. Porter
Veterinary Population Medicine
College of Veterinary Medicine

Professor Porter is a beloved teacher who inspires students through infectious enthusiasm and creative approaches. He fearlessly explores new techniques and technology to the great benefit of learners. He is an award winning course coordinator who has led a diverse faculty team to outstanding results. He shares his expertise in poultry pathology through the formation of collaborative partnerships to benefit learners in the state and region. He leads through his scholarly approach.

Alexander J. Rothman
Psychology
College of Liberal Arts

Professor Rothman has demonstrated dedication to graduate education through mentorship, teaching and program development. Through his approach to graduate training he provides students with the skills and inspiration to design and pursue lines of work that have an impact on their discipline as well as on practice and policy. As Associate Dean for Graduate Education, he established innovative programs and policies to support graduate programs across CLA and secured increased resources to support graduate students.

Barbara Young Welke
History and Law
College of Liberal Arts and Law School

In her twenty years at the University of Minnesota, graduate and professional teaching, advising, and mentoring have been central to Professor Welke’s mission. Through the Program in Law and History, leadership of the Hurst Institute, and other initiatives, she has made the University of Minnesota a premier institution for the training of legal historians, and as Director of Graduate Studies she made programmatic changes that left a lasting positive legacy for History Ph.D. students.

Eray S. Aydil
Chemical Engineering & Materials Science
College of Science & Engineering

Eray Aydil demonstrates exceptional graduate instruction and mentorship, which he achieves by combining his natural pedagogical gifts, personal and professional humility, ethical code, and penetrating sincerity. He inspires, empowers and motivates the PhD students in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.

Jim Boulger
Biobehavioral Health & Population Sciences, Medical School
University of Minnesota Duluth

Jim Boulger’s impact on the medical students of the University of Minnesota Medical School Duluth campus is legendary. His contributions as a teacher and mentor span five decades and have significantly influenced rural medical education and positively impacted the health of Minnesota’s rural citizens. Throughout his long career, Jim’s energetic engagement with medical students and the curriculum have reinforced the expectation that our students will ultimately serve rural or Native American communities.

Mark L. Davison
Educational Psychology
College of Education & Human Development

Professor Davison’s accomplishments include authorship of the first Graduate Student Handbook for the then new Department of Educational Psychology, creation of two endowed student assistantships, a $5,000,000 federally funded pre-doctoral training program, mentorship of students in a K-12 educational accountability center, and an online research symposium for faculty and graduate students involving five universities (Universities of Alberta, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, and Nebraska). Students with whom he has worked have taken eminent positions throughout the world.

Susan Goodwin Gerberich
Environmental Health Sciences
School of Public Health

Susan Gerberich is the Leon S. Robertson Professor of Injury Prevention, Mayo Professor of Public Health, and Director of the Midwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety Education and Research Center in the School of Public Health. She is an internationally recognized injury epidemiologist who developed and continues to lead a successful graduate academic research program. She has mentored dozens of graduate students, conducted extensive student-involved research, and demonstrated graduate teaching excellence.

Kathleen Krichbaum
Population Health Systems
School of Nursing

Kathleen Krichbaum is a master teacher, mentor and scholar who has had a transformational influence on her students and on nursing education. She has developed curricula; designed methods for evaluating program quality and for assessing clinical competencies used by her students and peers, as well as by schools of nursing throughout the country. She is a recognized thought leader who infuses creativity and innovation into designing strategies to improve how nurses teach and practice.

Kathryn Reyerson
History
College of Liberal Arts

Kathryn Reyerson is an outstanding teacher and stellar mentor who has helped shape the research agendas and professional careers of large numbers of graduate students. She has been a pivotal figure in the graduate program in medieval and early modern history, especially because of her critical work in developing the Center for Medieval Studies at the University of Minnesota.

Katherine West Scheil
English
College of Liberal Arts

Katherine West Scheil teaches innovative graduate courses to bring students into active conversation with the most urgent, cutting-edge topics in the Humanities. As Director of Graduate Studies in English for five years, she spearheaded new initiatives to enhance teaching;, significantly increased resources for student research support, and launched a program of professional development. Her awareness of the challenges and pleasures of graduate education motivates her to inspire students by teaching, mentoring, and empowering them to grow and excel in their intellectual pursuits.

Jeffry A. Simpson
Psychology
College of Liberal Arts

Jeffry A. Simpson is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Doctoral Minor in Interpersonal Relationships (IREL) at the University of Minnesota. He has been actively involved in the development and running of several graduate education programs as well as the training of numerous graduate students over the past 30 years. His research interests focus on relationships, evolution and social behavior, and social development across the lifespan.​​​​​​

Margaret A. Titus
Genetics, Cell Biology & Development
Medical School

Meg Titus is an internationally recognized scholar widely known for her research excellence in the cell biology of the cytoskeleton. She excels in teaching the fundamentals of cell biology and the art of lucid scientific presentation. Her love of science is infectious, and she is admired for her generosity and passion in the training of undergraduates, graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows, both within and outside her laboratory at the University of Minnesota.

Bryce A. Binstadt
Pediatrics
Medical School

A physician-scientist, Bryce Binstadt is a leading researcher and practitioner in the field of pediatric rheumatology. He excels in teaching across the span of his expertise, from basic immunology to the science and art of clinical medicine. He is also the founder of the department’s Pediatric Rheumatology Fellowship program. By combining his care of patients with work in his NIH-funded laboratory, Binstadt nurtures the careers of numerous graduate and medical students, postdoctoral trainees, and clinical fellows at the University of Minnesota and across the nation. See a full profile (pdf).

Ann M. Burkhart
Law School

As a nationally recognized expert in real estate law, Ann Burkhart has taught more than 5,000 students with rigor, passion, and care. She requires students to dig deeply into the course materials and to focus on the larger context. The students are inspired by her passion for the law and for their progress, and they benefit from her generous mentoring. According to a former student, she inspires learners to “look beyond technical and legal analysis and think deeply about what is practical and equitable.” See a full profile (pdf).

Mary L. Chesney
School of Nursing

Mary Chesney influences students by designing exquisite learning environments in the classroom, online, and in the community, and providing real-world “stretch” experiences. She served from 2010 to 2015 as director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice program, where her leadership and administrative skills are credited with driving the program’s growth and national prominence. The program is now the largest campus-based/online hybrid program in the country. Though a high-profile professional in her field, her availability to students is a remarkable constant. See a full profile (pdf).

Maria L. Gini
Computer Science and Engineering
College of Science and Engineering

As a teacher and adviser, Maria Gini instills students with the excitement of advancing the state of the art in computing in general and in artificial intelligence in particular. Her new students are often surprised to discover that she employs a pair of small, fully automated robots in her classroom as exemplars of state-of-the-art robotic devices. Gini’s combination of imagination and dedication to her field has earned her an international reputation in robotics and artificial intelligence, as well as a number of honors for her teaching, including the Morse-Alumni Award in 1987. See a full profile (pdf).

Kristine P. Krafts
Diagnostic and Biological Sciences
School of Dentistry

Kristine Krafts has perfected the art of teaching complex medical concepts with simplicity, grace, and humor. She teaches and directs the General Histology and Pathology courses at the Dental School, and the Hormonal Medicine and Hematology courses at the Duluth Campus of the Medical School. Her lectures are exciting, energetic, and entertaining. On the website she developed, pathologystudent.com, Krafts covers basic information, questions and answers, clinical cases, and unique tips for learning pathology that are illustrated clearly. Through it she not only motivates her students and facilitates learning, but reaches out to pathology students worldwide to help them learn pathology in a friendly, interactive environment. See a full profile (pdf).

Deniz S. Ones
Psychology
College of Liberal Arts

Deniz Ones is a gifted teacher and mentor, whose students benefit greatly from her collegial style of research leadership. As one of the most influential scholars in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, she embraces a collaborative mentorship style that has resulted in numerous impactful publications co-authored by her mentees. Her advisees have won every award that the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology offers to graduate students. She is considered by colleagues as one of the main reasons why, though small, the Industrial and Organizational Psychology program consistently ranks first of 54 such programs in the nation. Ones was named a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in 2011. See a full profile (pdf).

Joe Soss
Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs

Joe Soss is an internationally acclaimed scholar of politics and society with a focus on power, public policy, inequality, and inequity. Soss has worked to open the Humphrey Institute’s educational environment to diverse theoretical and political perspectives, research methodologies, and pedagogies and, thus, to diverse students. Students describe him as willing to confront hard questions that need to be asked to improve society. He is noted for his commitment to graduate education for students in the professional master’s degree programs at the Humphrey School, as well as doctoral programs across three departments (Humphrey School, Political Science and Sociology). See a full profile (pdf).

Randall H. Victora
Electrical and Computer Engineering
College of Science and Engineering

With a focus on applications of physics to improve devices, Randall Victora had an extensive career in industry before switching to academics. As a faculty member in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and as director of the Minnesota Micromagnetics and Information Technology Center, he has revitalized the University’s program in magnetics while mentoring graduate students who now lead magnetics research programs across the nation and abroad. As director of graduate studies, Victora enhanced the visibility and competitiveness of graduates with innovations like customized graduate training, which raised the profile of the department and helped launch the careers of many micromagnetics professionals. See a full profile (pdf).

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