The Ohio State Academy of Teaching
4th Annual Mini Conference on Excellence in Teaching
Younkin Success Center, 1640 Neil Avenue
May 21st, 2010
Biographies of Presenters and Organizers
Caroline Breitenberger earned a BS in Chemistry at Ohio University, and a PhD in Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At UNC, she studied the function of the chloroplast protein synthesis apparatus in Euglena gracilis with Linda Spremulli. She then held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with Uttam L. RajBhandary on transcription and RNA processing in Neurospora crassa mitochondria. She joined the Biochemistry Department at the Ohio State University in 1986, and, after a stint as Associate Dean in the College of Biological Sciences, she now serves as Director of the Center for Life Sciences Education. The CLSE is an interdepartmental unit that houses the biology major (the largest major at Ohio State), and the undergraduate biology courses, including introductory courses for majors and non-majors.
Caroline Breitenberger received the Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995. She has twice been named as an Outstanding Faculty member by Mortar Board members, and was offered honorary Mortar Board membership in 2007. In 2009, she was selected to attend the HHMI Summer Institute for Undergraduate Education in Biology at the University of Wisconsin. Recently, she was named a National Academies Education Fellow in the Life Sciences.
Samuel Beavers is a fourth year (and a graduating senior), majoring in Comparative Studies with a Cultural Studies concentration.
Ann Christy is an associate professor in the Department of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering. She worked for an environmental engineering firm for several years before entering academia and continues to collaborate with the engineering consulting industry. Her broad research interests include energy, the environment, and engineering education. Last year, Ann served as interim associate dean for undergraduate education and student services in the College of Engineering. She is involved in OSU’s quarter-to-semester conversion effort at multiple levels: as point person and undergraduate studies chair for her department, as a member of the college-level Q2S committees in both the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (FAES) and the College of Engineering, and as a Faculty Fellow in the university Office of Academic Affairs.
Joseph F. Donnermeyer was a winner of the OSU Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2004, and currently serves as the chair of the Executive Council for the OSU Academy of Teaching. He is a professor in the Rural Sociology program, Department of Human and Community Resource Development, where he is mostly a criminologist but maintains a second line of research on social and cultural change among the Amish. He is the author/co-author of 7 books and over 100 journal articles and book chapters, including several on the scholarship of teaching and learning. He was the editor of volume 2 of “Talking and Teaching,” and is lead editor for volumes 3 and 4. TAT is a volume of essays about great teaching sponsored by the OSU Academy of Teaching and published annually.
Richard J. Freuler is the Faculty Coordinator for the Ohio State University’s Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors (FEH) Program in the College of Engineering and teaches the three-quarter FEH engineering course sequence. He is also a Professor of Practice in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. Dr. Freuler is the Associate Director of the department’s Aeronautical and Astronautical Research Laboratory (AARL) and conducts scale model investigations of gas turbine installations for jet engine test cells and for marine and industrial applications of gas turbine engines. Dr. Freuler earned his Bachelor of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering (1974), his B.S. in Computer and Information Sciences (1974), his M.S. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering (1974), and his Ph.D. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering (1991) all from The Ohio State University.
As the FEH Faculty Coordinator, Dr. Freuler currently leads a team of approximately 30 faculty and staff from several departments in the College of Engineering and from the Mathematics and Physics departments in the College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences. The FEH Program is a part of the First-Year Engineering Program of the Engineering Education Innovation Center housed in the College Engineering. In addition to teaching in the FEH sequence, he participates in the recruitment of high ability students and manages the orientation of incoming engineering Honors students. Under Dr. Freuler’s leadership, the number of students enrolling in the FEH program has grown by more than 400% since 1998. In Autumn 2009, a total of 431 University Honors students were enrolled in the FEH Program, representing the largest FEH class ever.
Dr. Freuler has been recognized by the College of Engineering in 1999 with the Boyer Award for Excellence in Teaching Innovation. The award is presented to a faculty team or to an individual faculty member who has made outstanding contributions to the improvement of undergraduate engineering education. The award recognizes the long-term impact of educational innovation to improve the overall quality of the undergraduate engineering experience. He has been recognized by the undergraduate engineering students with the Charles Ellison MacQuigg Award in 2000 and again for a second time in 2004. The award is presented annually to faculty members who have demonstrated, in a superior manner, their interest in and willingness to help students, their interest in improvement of the high reputation of the College of Engineering, and their outstanding teaching ability. A third MacQuigg Award was received in 2008. He was selected in May 2008 to receive the College’s first “David C. McCarthy Teaching Award” which is now presented annually to one or more faculty or staff members in recognition of their contributions to create more innovative and effective teaching and learning.
Wayne Hall is vice provost for faculty development at the University of Cincinnati as well as a professor of English. His administrative work, his teaching, and his research and scholarship all cluster around the issues of scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching & learning.
Samir Mathur obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Bombay in 1987. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Tata Institute, Bombay from 1987 to 1989 and at Harvard University from 1989 to 1991. He was at MIT as an Assistant Professor 1991-1997, and as an Associate Professor 1997-1999. He joined Ohio State in 1999 as an Associate Professor, and has been a Professor since 2002. His research work has focused on resolving the black hole information paradox noted by Hawking in 1974. He is the recipient of the Alumni Award for distinguished teaching from the Ohio State University.
Mark Shanda is the current chair of the Department of Theatre and has recently been appointed Interim Dean of the Arts and Humanities, effective July 1, 2010. Shanda is one of the founding members of the University Level Advisory Committee (ULAC) on the General Education Curriculum (GEC) and chaired this committee as they worked to develop the recommended semester based Gen Ed requirements for Arts and Sciences.
Dan Shapiro earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been employed at Ohio State since then. In addition to teaching math courses and working as a vice chair in the Department of Mathematics, he is involved with the Ross Mathematics Program, a summer session for high school students talented in mathematics.
W. Randy Smith received his M.A and Ph.D. from York University in Toronto, Canada, and joined the faculty of the Department of Geography at The Ohio State University in 1978, with research and teaching emphases in urban geography. He joined the Office of Academic Affairs in 1998 and is currently Vice Provost for Academic Programs with a portfolio that includes oversight of all curricular development, academic program review, special programmatic initiatives, and statewide work on articulation and transfer. He is a recipient of the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching (1990) and the Faculty Award for Distinguished University Service (1997).
David L. Tomasko is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education and Student Services, and the Deputy Director of the Center for Affordable Nanoengineering of Polymeric Biomedical Devices, OSU College of Engineering. He received his B.Sc., 1986, in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and his M.Sc., 1990, and Ph.D., 1992, in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois. In 2005 he was awarded the Exemplary Service Award, Minority Engineering Program, OSU, in 2002 he received the OSU Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, in 2004 he received the Ralph L. Boyer Award for Outstanding Teaching, in 2002 he received the Lumley Award for Interdisciplinary Research, in 1999 and 2004 he received the Charles E. MacQuigg Award for Outstanding Teaching, in 1999, 2003 and 2008 he received the Lumley Engineering Research Award, OSU College of Engineering, and in 1998 he received the Maro Future Technology Award for special achievement in research of future developments in the field of Polymers. His research interests include mass transfer and molecular thermodynamics of supercritical fluid (SCF) solutions for separation design, sorption equilibria involving compressible fluid solutions and complex matrices. Polymeric and pharmaceutical materials processing with carbon dioxide including blending, mixing, foaming, and impregnation, impact of delivery methods in undergraduate engineering education, and engineering outreach to K-12 students.
Judy Tzu-Chun Wu is an associate professor of History and Women’s Studies and a co-coordinator for the Asian American Studies Program. She received her educational degrees at Stanford University, and has been teaching OSU for the past 12 years. She received the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2002.
Mohamed Yousif received his B.Sc. in Mathematics from Cairo University in 1976, his M.Sc. from University of Alberta in 1981, and his Ph.D. from University of Calgary in 1986. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of British Columbia from 1986 to 1988, and joined Ohio State University in 1988. He is the author of over 50 peer-reviewed research articles, and a research monograph, on Quasi-Frobenius Rings, with Cambridge University Press, 2003. He is the recipient of both the outstanding scholar and the distinguished teaching awards from the Ohio State University at Lima, and the Alumni Award for distinguished teaching from the Ohio State University. He is currently a tenured professor at the Ohio State University, Lima Campus, and chairman of the board of directors of the Mathematical Sciences Research Centre in Cairo, Egypt.