2012 SEC Faculty Achievement Award Recipients

SEC Faculty Achievement Award Winners (PDF)

University of Alabama
David A. Dixon is currently the Robert Ramsay Chair of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Alabama, where he has taught since 2004. Dr. Dixon’s main research interest is the application of the techniques of numerical simulation to chemical problems with a focus on fluorine chemistry using electronic structure theory. He uses numerical simulation to obtain quantitative results for molecular systems of interest to experimental chemists and engineers with specific emphasis on materials and production processes. He is a world leader in computational aspects of fluorine chemistry with a broad range of studies on organic, inorganic and polymer systems.

University of Arkansas
Elliott West is the Alumni Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Arkansas and teaches and writes on the history of the American West and on environmental and Native American history. West has authored six books. His most recent work, The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story (2009), is one of three of his books to receive the Western Heritage Award and second to win the Western History Association’s Caughey Prize, both given to the year’s outstanding work in western history. His The Contested Plains (1998) received six national awards, including the PEN-West Award as the year’s best non-fiction book and the Francis Parkman Prize as the outstanding book in American history.

Auburn University
Christopher D. Roberts is Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering and the George E. and Dorothy Stafford Uthlaut Professor of Chemical Engineering at Auburn University. Roberts has been the principal or co-principal investigator on more than $16 million in extramural research and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the United States Department of Agriculture, and others. Roberts currently serves on editorial boards of the journals Fuel Processing Technology and Fluid Phase Equilibria. He has twice received the Auburn Engineering Senior Research Award, as well as the Walker and Birdsong teaching awards. He has published more than 110 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and has given more than 300 technical presentations.

University of Florida
Kenneth D. Wald is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. He has written about the relationship of religion and politics in the United States, Great Britain, and Israel. His most recent books include Religion and Politics in the United States (2010), The Politics of Cultural Differences: Social Change and Voter Mobilization Strategies in the Post-New Deal Period (2002, co-authored), and The Politics of Gay Rights (2000, co-edited). He has been a Fulbright Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a visiting scholar at the University of Strathyclyde (Glasgow), Haifa University (Israel), Harvard University, and the Centennial Center for Political Science & Public Affairs in Washington, DC.

University of Georgia
Loch Kingsford Johnson is the Regents Professor of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia, as well as a Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor. Dr. Johnson is a specialist in foreign and security affairs. He has worked in the Senate, the House, and the Executive Office of the President. He is the author of more than 200 articles and essays; and the author or editor of 28 books on U.S. national security. He is editor of the journal Intelligence and National Security, and his books include A Season of Inquiry; The Making of International Agreements; America as a World Power; America’s Secret Power; Secret Agencies; Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs; and Fateful Decisions: Inside the National Security Council.

University of Kentucky
Steven W. Yates, professor of chemistry, physics, and astronomy at the University of Kentucky, has made notable contributions as a researcher and educator, as an editor and a writer, and as a member of government and private-sector science panels. Dr. Yates has authored or co-authored more than 200 refereed publications, more than 270 additional abstracts of presentations at professional conferences, and is a regular contributor of educational articles in the Journal of Chemical Education. He has provided expertise in Finland, Spain, Germany and to the International Atomic Energy Agency Advisory Groups on Low Energy Accelerators in Elemental Analysis, in Chaing Mai, Thailand.

Louisiana State University
J. Gerald Kennedy is Boyd Professor of English at Louisiana State University and former chair of the English Department at LSU. A past president of the Poe Studies Association, he is the author of Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing (1993), and editor of A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe (2001) as well as The Portable Edgar Allan Poe (2006). His work on the American expatriate movement includes Imagining Paris: Exile, Writing, and American Identity (1993) and a co-edited volume, French Connections: Hemingway and Fitzgerald Abroad (1998).

University of Mississippi
John O’Haver is associate dean for academic and student affairs and professor of chemical engineering at the University of Mississippi. Dr. O’Haver taught high school mathematics and science for 12 years and he has been teaching chemical engineering at Ole Miss for 14 years. He co-authored Reuse of Surfactants and Cosolvents for NAPL Remediation, and contributed chapters to Reactions and Synthesis in Surfactant Systems and Solubilization in Serfactant Solutions. He has received funding for a variety of K-12 outreach programs, and currently serves as director for the Center for Mathematics and Science Education.

Mississippi State University
Keith H. Coble joined the faculty of the Agricultural Economics Department at Mississippi State University in 1997. In 2009 he was named a W.L. Giles Distinguished Professor there. Dr. Coble came to Mississippi State after serving as a team leader for the Economic Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He has published more than 65 scientific research journal articles addressing risk management, agricultural and food policy, renewable energy, insurance, and experimental economics. Coble has served as Chair of the Food and Agricultural Marketing Policy Section and was founding Chair of the Applied Risk Analysis section of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

University of South Carolina
Scott Price currently serves as Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy, Head of the Piano Area, and Coordinator of Group Piano in the University of South Carolina School of Music. He is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma (DMA), Cleveland Institute of Music (MM) and Bowling Green State University in Ohio (BM). Dr. Price is creator and editor-in-chief of the online piano pedagogy journal Piano Pedagogy Forum, which received the 2008 MTNA Frances Clark Keyboard Pedagogy Award. He has recorded 33 compact discs of educational piano music for Alfred Publishing Company, and has published educational compositions with Alfred Publishing Company and the FJH Music Company.

University of Tennessee
Carol Tenopir is a Chancellor’s Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee and Director of the Center for Information and Communication Studies and Director of Research, College of Communication and Information. She is the author of five books, including Communication Patterns of Engineers (2004) and Towards Electronic Journals (2000) with Donald W. King. Her areas of teaching and research include information access and retrieval, electronic publishing, the information industry, online resources, and the impact of technology on reference librarians and scientists.

Vanderbilt University
Cecelia Tichi is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. She received her M.A. from Johns Hopkins University and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis. Before coming to Vanderbilt in 1987, she taught at Boston University. At Vanderbilt, she teaches classes in nineteenth and twentieth century American literature, focusing on aspects of culture from consumerism and social critique to country music. She is the author of six scholarly books as well as the editor of several others, including Reading Country Music: Steel Guitars, Opry Stars, and Honky-Tonk Bars (1998).

2012 SEC Faculty Achievement Award Recipients

Updated 4/10/2012