On Friday, April 21, the Georgia Institute of Technology honored the most outstanding faculty and staff during the 2016-2017 academic year at its annual honors luncheon held in the student center ballroom. The event honors faculty and staff whose service, activities, and accomplishments have been particularly noteworthy over the past year.

This year, four Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering faculty members were recognized for their excellence.

Joe Le Doux, associate chair for undergraduate learning and experience, won the Curriculum Innovation Award. This award recognizes faculty who are improving the quality of education at Georgia Tech through pedagogical and curricular innovation. It is given to full-time general faculty of any rank or a team of faculty members who have implemented an innovation in their course or departmental curriculum at the undergraduate or graduate level. Applicants must show evidence that the innovation has been evaluated and has improved student learning and/or the student experience.

Balakrishna Pai, director of instructional laboratories in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory, won the Innovation and Excellence in Laboratory Instruction Award. This award is given to full-time general faculty of any rank who have excelled in teaching in the laboratory. The “laboratory” can be broadly defined to include both traditional science labs and other formal courses that include experiential learning where students participate in the processes of investigation, analysis, and reflection in order to reach a deeper understanding of course concepts.

Earlier this year, Pai also received the 2016 Class of 1940 Course Survey Teaching Effectiveness Award. This award recognizes no more than 40 Georgia Tech faculty members who excel in the eyes of their students measured by their scores on end-of-course instructor evaluations. Only faculty members with a high response rate and a near-perfect evaluation score on the Course-Instructor Opinion Survey are considered.

Manu Platt, associate professor in the Coulter Department, won a Faculty Award for Academic Outreach along with Robert Nerem, professor emeritus in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. They manage Project ENGAGES, an inspiring high school science education program developed by Georgia Tech in partnership with five minority-serving public high schools in the City of Atlanta.

Biomedical engineering professor Younan Xia, Brock Family Chair, GRA Eminent Scholar in Nanomedicine, with joint appointments in Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, won the Outstanding Faculty Research Author Award.  

The event was hosted by Kim Harrington, associate vice president, Office of Human Resources, and Colin Potts, vice provost, Undergraduate Education, Office of the Provost. G.P. “Bud” Peterson, president of Georgia Tech, presented the last award and gave the final remarks.

Media Contact:
Walter Rich
Communications Manager
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology