Dean's Message - April 2023
Content
One of my favorite responsibilities as dean is talking up the excellence of our faculty, staff and students. This month, I’ve got a lot to talk about!
First of all, I am pleased to announce this year’s recipients of the School’s Outstanding Teaching Awards:
The recipient of our College Outstanding Teaching Award is Gregory Grinnell, lecturer in Kinesiology. In his nominating materials, Greg was described as “being welcoming, flexible, and caring,” and that students appreciated his advocating for them in times of need. The comment that struck the committee most was: “I have never genuinely enjoyed a class here [at UMass] until this class. It made me love my major. It made me proud to be an SPHHS student. It gave me the confidence to pursue this career path and the knowledge to do so as well.”
The recipient of our UWW Outstanding Teaching Award is Susan Brown, lecturer in our Public Health Practice program. Susan’s nominators described her as “thorough, prompt, easy to understand, and kind.” Her class was described as accessible, with a wide range of helpful materials, and her students appreciated her inclusivity and the real-world examples she provided to enlighten and clarify the content.
The recipient of our Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award is Melanna Cox, a doctoral student in the Department of Kinesiology. It was clear from the student nominations that Melanna’s skill in teaching is consistently noticed and appreciated. Students praised her clarity, ability to re-explain concepts, willingness to work with disability services, and patience in working with students until they understood important concepts. They described her classes as engaging and entertaining, and they praised Melanna for making them feel seen and heard.
Congratulations to these exemplary educators in our school! They transform the lives of our students every day with their thoughtful, creative, respectful, and inclusive pedagogy.
We have so many other outstanding faculty to highlight: Aline Gubrium, who received the ADVANCE faculty peer mentor award; our new Center for Research on Families (CRF) faculty research scholars Soonkyu Chung and Amanda Paluch; and our recently named TIDE Ambassadors, Florian Hafner, Jing Qian, and Gwyneth Rost.
I could go on, but I’d like to turn my attention to the amazing students in our school and highlight some of their recent achievements.
This month, the university recognized the Spring 2023 class of Rising Researchers. Among the student scholars selected are Isabella Boyack ’23, who works in the lab of Environmental Health Sciences’ Alicia Timme-Laragy and studies the effects of PFAS chemicals on the development of the exocrine pancreas, and Sean Bannon '24, a kinesiology major working in Gwenael Layec’s Oxygen and Muscle Metabolism (O2M) Laboratory and conducts research on the effects of cigarette smoke on mitochondrial function. Congratulations to both!
On April 14th, we hosted our 26th Annual SPHHS Research Day in the Student Union Ballroom. We had 69 posters submitted, a record number! I’m especially pleased to say that all departments and programs were represented, demonstrating once again the high-quality of research that our students engaged in with their faculty mentors. Congratulations to the prize winners and to all, including the Associate Dean for Research Brian Whitcomb and to the SPHHS Research Committee, who organized the well-attended event. Read more about it here.
Five SPHHS students also received awards from the UMass Center for Research on Families. The awards are given to students who have conducted high-quality and impactful research, written an outstanding paper, or created an exceptional poster on issues of family research and will be presenting the paper or poster at a national research conference. The Travel Award ($350) went to Lingsong Kong, a doctoral student in Kinesiology. Elizabeth Delorme, doctoral student in Health Promotion and Policy, won a full scholarship to the CRF Methodology Introduction to Dyadic Data Analysis Seminar. Joshua Mogus, doctoral student in Environmental Health Sciences, received a $5,000 Center for Research on Families Dissertation Award. Shivangi Bajpai, doctoral student in Kinesiology, was selected to receive a Center for Research on Families Methodology Scholarship to attend the Stress Biomarkers workshop. And Charlotte Gridley, an undergraduate student working in the Environmental Health Sciences lab of Alicia Timme-Laragy, won a $2,000 Undergraduate Research Award.
There are so many other students receiving well-deserved recognition for their research and academic work – too many to name individually – so let me just conclude by saying we are proud of all your hard work and the many different ways you contribute to our SPHHS community. Thank you, and congratulations to all.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk more about the important ways we are contributing to our communities – be it the communities that surround us or our campus community. Specifically, I’d like to highlight the work of our students from the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. Graduate students Ada López González, Anna-Maria D'Ambra, Kimberlee Moise, and Mark Schilling participated in Holyoke High School’s "You Can Be Anything You Want to Be" Career Day. This event, held in partnership between the United States Attorney's Office District of Massachusetts and Holyoke High School as part of the Department of Justice's nationwide Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative, introduces students to a wide range of careers that they might not have known or knew little about to inspire students and spark creativity and curiosity. This type of community engagement by our students is an extension of what is being taught at SPHHS – to give back with our time and talent to help others have a better path forward.
This past weekend’s UMass Dash and Dine event provided a terrific opportunity for us to come together in support of the Amherst Survival Center. Thank you to all the SPHHS community members who joined me in participating in this event. It was a glorious day that was full of laughter, exercise, and good food. Here is a group shot of us at the dash.
Finally, I’d like to mention that this academic year will finish later than usual. Thus, in these last few weeks of the semester, I do wish our students well as they prepare for final projects and exams. Please remember to take time for self-care. This can be a very stressful time. Be sure to communicate with your instructor if you are having issues with completing coursework, take time to smile, eat and exercise every day, and call a friend or family member to share how you are feeling. Having connection to others enhances our sense of well-being. Enjoy the warmer weather.