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Recognitions, August 19

The first day of classes for the fall semester brings; the 2020 Chancellor’s professors are announced; UTIA’s director of specialized giving is appointed to the NAADA Board of Directors;TCE associate professor wins Best Case Study award from ASCE; the Executive Director of the Tennessee Geographic Alliance receives the Outstanding Support for Geography Education Award from NCGE; UTIA announces the new head of the Department of Food Science; and an assistant professor in the Department of Geography receives the Higher Education Distinguished Teaching Award from NCGE.

Five Faculty Members Named 2020 Chancellor’s Professors

2020 Chancellor's Professors

Five faculty leaders have been named as the 2020 class of Chancellor’s Professors, one of the highest faculty honors bestowed by our university.

These exceptional scholars, researchers, and professors represent the best of what the University of Tennessee has to offer. With expertise spanning humanities, forensic sciences, engineering, and geography, they represent UT with distinction and are doing work that improves lives and increases understanding of the world around us.

Beech Appointed to Board of Directors for National Agricultural Organization

UTIA's Evan Beech, director of specialized giving

Evan Beech, director of specialized giving at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, has been appointed to a one-year term on the Board of Directors for the National Agricultural Alumni and Development Association (NAADA). Beech will serve as a director at large and be appointed to special projects throughout the year for the volunteer-driven organization.

Beech’s term of service began on June 23 with that of more than twenty other Board members from across the United States following NAADA’s 45th Annual Conference.

Hathaway Wins Best Case Study Award from ASCE

UT Associate Professor Jon Hathaway, TCEAssociate Professor Jon Hathaway’s recent paper, “Establishing a Framework for the Spatial Identification of Effective Impervious Areas in Gauged Basins: Review and Case Study,” published in the Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment, was recently awarded Best Case Study by the journal.

Co-authored with CEE alumnus Thom Epps (PhD, ’18), the paper reviews existing methods to quantify and identify the impervious areas in a watershed that are most detrimental to stream health—Effective Impervious Areas (EIA)—and proposes a new framework that builds on these methodologies to offer an automated and objective way to spatially identify the most probable impervious areas comprising the EIA.

Butefish Receives Outstanding Support for Geography Education Award from NCGE

Kurt Butefish, Executive Director of the Tennessee Geographic AllianceKurt Butefish, Executive Director of the Tennessee Geographic Alliance, will receive In December 2020 the Outstanding Support for Geography Education Award from the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE). Kurt is being honored with this national award in recognition of his outstanding, decades-long contributions to supporting geography education and geography educators within the state of Tennessee and across the US.

During Kurt’s tenure, the Alliance has trained over 1190 teachers in 1-4 week institutes and thousands more teachers in shorter (half-day to multi-day) workshops.

UTIA Welcomes New Head of the Department of Food Science

UTIA's Robert Williams, head of the Department of Food Science

UT Institute of Agriculture has named Robert C. Williams as head of the Department of Food Science. Williams is currently a professor of food microbiology at Virginia Tech with more than 18 years of service to academia and the food science industry.

Williams is an alumnus of UT Knoxville, having earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from the department that he will now lead. He was awarded an M.S. in food science and technology in 1998 and a Ph.D. in 2001. A native of Morristown, Tennessee, Williams received his undergraduate degree in biology from Tennessee Technological University in 1994.

Muñoz Recieves Higher Education Distinguished Teaching Award from NCGE

Solange Muñoz, assistant professor in UT's Department of Geography

Solange Muñoz will be a 2020 recipient of the Higher Education Distinguished Teaching Award from the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE). She will be formally recognized by the NCGE community at an awards ceremony at their annual conference in December 2020. The NCGE award honors those university educators who have made extraordinary contributions to the teaching and learning of geography at the postsecondary level.