Members of the Rutgers community who have made outstanding contributions in the classroom, to their disciplines or for the benefit of the community or world were honored during a May 7 reception at the Rutgers Visitor Center in Piscataway. Four SEBS/NJAES faculty members, Josh Kohut, Mark Robson, Pam McElwee and Dave Robinson, were among 35 faculty members from the Camden, Newark and New Brunswick campuses to receive awards. Among these were three faculty members, including Kohut, who received two awards each.
Mark Robson
Mark Robson, Department of Plant Biology and Pathology and Dean of Agricultural and Urban Programs, received the Rutgers Faculty Scholar-Teacher Award. He was honored for his contributions to the field of exposure sciences, which have had significant policy and public health implications at the local, state, national, and international levels, and for the passion, enthusiasm, and energy by which he is able to engage students in these complex topics. The Rutgers Faculty Scholar-Teacher Award honors faculty members who have made outstanding contributions in research and teaching. The award recognizes those who bring together scholarly and classroom activities. The award includes a $1,000 honorarium.
Pam McElwee
Pam McElwee, Department of Human Ecology, and Josh Kohut, Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, both received the Rutgers Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence, which honors faculty members who have recently been promoted with tenure and whose work shows exceptional promise. The fellowship includes a citation and a $1,000 research account. McElwee was honored for her wide-ranging and trans-disciplinary research that bridges anthropology, geography, public policy, forestry and conservation biology to address real-world issues related to the politics of environmental governance and climate change.
Josh Kohut
Josh Kohut was honored for his ability to take leading-edge technologies and make them powerful operating tools that have contributed significantly to our understanding of the physical environment and its role in structuring coastal marine ecosystems. He also received the Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence, which honors newly tenured faculty members for outstanding teaching and scholarly work. In this award, he was cited for his contributions to undergraduate and graduate education, his formation of the Oceanography House to interest students in active research early in their academic careers and his commitment to providing students with hands-on research experience.
Dave Robinson
David Robinson, Department of Geography at the School of Arts and Sciences, and New Jersey State Climatologist, which is part of NJAES, received the Rutgers College Class of 1962 Presidential Public Service Award. He was recognized for his dedication to providing the citizens and leaders of New Jersey with the information they need to make informed decisions relating to severe weather events, to educating them on methods of mitigating or preventing damage to people and property, and to sharing his knowledge generously and widely with students, teachers, researchers, legislators and the general public in the state of New Jersey and beyond. The Rutgers College Class of 1962 Presidential Public Service Award honors members of the faculty, student body or staff for volunteer service to government, professional and scholarly organizations, or the public. The award includes a $2,500 honorarium.
To read more about all faculty awards for 2014, see the article in Rutgers Today.
