“This past year we’ve seen 33 percent growth in our faculty-directed programming, while overall participation across all programs grew 20 percent to an all-time high of 367 students with an international study experience in a single academic year,” Easler says.

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A UT faculty member who uses computational and mathematical tools to address environmental problems has received a top award from the Southeastern Conference.

Louis Gross was honored with the 2018 SEC Faculty Achievement Award, the SEC announced today. He is an Alvin and Sally Beaman Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Mathematics. He also is director of the UT Institute for Environmental Modeling and of the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS), based at UT.

The award recognizes professors from the 14 SEC schools who have outstanding records in teaching and scholarship. Honorees from each university receive a $5,000 honorarium and become their university’s nominee for SEC Professor of the Year, to be awarded this spring. The Professor of the Year recipient will receive an additional $15,000 honorarium and be recognized at an SEC awards dinner in Destin, Florida.

McClung Museum Wins Award from Museum Association

The McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture received a Tennessee Association of Museums (TAM) Award of Excellence for the museum’s special exhibition Fish Forks and Fine Furnishings: Consumer Culture in the Gilded Age, which ran from May 26 to August 27, 2017.

The exhibition examined how Gilded Age (1870–1900) consumer goods––from fish forks to fashionable dress, furniture, and china––were visible and powerful symbols of wealth, power, and social class. It was curated by the museum’s Assistant Director and Curator Catherine Shteynberg and featured more than 100 objects from the museum’s permanent collections as well as items from other museums and private lenders. Fish Forks and Fine Furnishings is one of the museum’s most visited special exhibits in recent history; it incorporated a variety of public programming, including lectures, free family fun days and stroller tours, summer camps, and a cocktail party fundraiser.

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The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has honored UT’s Yuntao Wu with the 2017 Radiation Instrumentation Early Career Award, a top honor for young faculty.

Wu, a research assistant professor in materials science and engineering, was honored for “significant and innovative technical contributions to the fields of radiation instrumentation and measurement techniques.”

Given by IEEE’s Nuclear and Plasma Science Society, the honor comes for Wu’s work with the Scintillation Materials Research Center at UT.

Beebe Inducted as Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing

College of Nursing Professor Lora Humphrey Beebe was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing on October 7.  The Academy serves the public and the nursing profession by advancing health policy and practice through the generation, synthesis, and dissemination of nursing knowledge. Academy members, known as Fellows, are nursing’s most accomplished leaders.

Beebe’s research informs psychiatric nursing practice, shapes nursing education nationally and internationally, and has been published and presented in both nursing and non-nursing venues. She is a three-time recipient of the Excellence in Research Award from the American Psychiatric Nurses’ Association, and book review editor for Issues in Mental Health Nursing. She received her bachelors of science in nursing from Marshall University, and her masters of Science and doctor of philosophy from the University of Kentucky.

Engineering Student Earns STEM Conference Award

The Women of Color STEM Conference has named UT’s Jasmine Worlds the 2017 recipient of the Student Leadership Award from the Career Communication Group.

Worlds, a senior in mechanical engineering, was honored for her work in engineering and her commitment to volunteering outside the classroom. She received the award Oct. 7 at the group’s conference in Detroit, Michigan.

“UT provides many opportunities for its students to lead,” said Worlds. “Having the opportunity to create or influence change is important, and UT has provided a space where it is possible to do so.”

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Please send faculty, staff, and student recognitions to Erin Chapin (erin.chapin@utk.edu).

• The Forensic Anthropology Center (FAC) celebrates its 30th Anniversary this year. The center oversees the Anthropology Research Facility, commonly known as the Body Farm, which is the nations most prominent facility where researchers systemically study human decomposition.

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