Celebration of Academic Excellence 2026 | Office of the Provost

Celebration of
Academic Excellence
2026

Nationally and internationally recognized faculty representing 150+ years of academic excellence at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Congratulatory Remarks

Message from the Chancellor

Charles L. Isbell, Jr.

On behalf of the students, staff, and faculty of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, I’d like to extend my sincere congratulations to the recipients of the Campus Excellence Awards in Faculty Leadership, Instruction, and the Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Award.

Your work exemplifies the responsibility we have to future generations, and strengthens our tradition of real, measurable impact throughout the state, the nation, and the world.

Thank you for your service to our campus, and for being pillars of our intellectual community as we work together to shape the future of higher education. We are truly grateful to have you as part of our Illinois family.

Message from the Provost

John Coleman

Congratulations to the outstanding faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, mentors, advisors, and support staff who are being honored this year for their contributions to our education mission. Your contributions drive the world-class learning experiences that students find at Illinois, and that distinguishes our university. These awards carry special meaning, as they represent the esteem, gratitude, and admiration of your colleagues and students.

Your dedication, creativity, and passion for teaching and guiding students shapes their futures, enriches the lives of their families, and strengthens the communities they go on to serve.

Thank you for your unwavering commitment to excellence. We celebrate you and the extraordinary impact you make every day.

University Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Award

Yuting Chen
Early Career Prize
Teaching Associate Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering

Jeff Erickson
Advanced Career Prize
Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Professor
Siebel School of Computing and Data Science

Campus Awards for Excellence in Faculty Leadership

Several campus-level awards are given each year in recognition of excellence in faculty leadership for those faculty who distinguish themselves with their vision of the future and their effort to enable and promote others in shaping that future.

Excellence in Faculty Mentoring

This award recognizes faculty who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to faculty mentoring by actively assisting pre-tenure and mid-career faculty in developing their career(s). Exceptional mentoring can include offering advice, feedback and guidance on research activities, coaching on work-life balance issues, providing professional opportunities for mentees, and/or assisting in development of teaching skills.

David Cahill
Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
and Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering

Executive Officer Distinguished Leadership

This award recognizes outstanding academic leadership and vision by an executive officer within a college or campus unit. Recipients are exemplars of effective leadership who have led diverse groups through strategic improvements within their unit or campus.

Paul Braun
Professor, Materials Science and Engineering,
Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering,
Director of Materials Research Laboratory

Gene Robinson
Professor, Entomology,
Swanlund Endowed Chair,
Executive Director and CEO of Discovery Partners Institute

Outstanding Faculty Leadership

This award recognizes a faculty member who has provided extraordinary leadership contributions across many dimensions of shared governance that advance the excellence of a unit, a college, and/or the campus, and who exemplifies the campus commitment to collaborative decision-making. This award is the highest accolade honoring a faculty member whose professional service has advanced progress toward the Illinois mission.

Rob Kar
Professor
Law and Philosophy

Sheldon Katz
Professor, Mathematics
and Arthur Coble Scholar

Campus Awards for Excellence in Instruction

Several campus-level awards are given each year in recognition of excellence in undergraduate teaching, mentoring, advising, and research; graduate and professional teaching and mentoring; and extramural teaching.

Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring

This award recognizes faculty for their sustained excellence in graduate student mentoring, innovative approaches to graduate advising, and their impact on graduate student scholarship and professional development. The award is cosponsored by the graduate college.

Marcelo H. Garcia
Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
M. T. Geoffrey Yeh Endowed Chair in Civil Engineering,
Director, Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory

Mariselle Meléndez
Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Director, School of Literatures,Cultures & Linguistics

Excellence in Graduate & Professional Teaching

Recipients of this award are honored for sustained excellence and innovation in graduate or professional teaching and their contributions to graduate or professional learning beyond classroom instruction.

Maria Cattai de Godoy
Associate Professor
Animal Sciences

Mani Golparvar-Fard
Professor
Civil Engineering

Excellence in Online Teaching

This award honors excellence and innovation in online teaching, contributions to student learning through innovative uses of technology, creativity in course development and instruction, and for having had a positive influence on the quality, extent, and development of a department’s online program.

Christy Bazan
Adjunct Instructor
Health and Kinesiology

Leslie Looney
Professor, Astronomy
Director of Laboratory for Astronomical Imaging

Illinois Student Council Teaching Excellence Award

Jennifer Gunji-Ballsrud
Associate Professor, Art and Design
Director of Japan House

Catherine Best-Popescu
Research Assistant Professor
Bioengineering

Excellence in Guiding Undergraduate Research

This award honors faculty for their excellence in involving and guiding undergraduate students in scholarly research, having a positive impact on student scholarship or intellectual development, and for their innovative approaches to guiding undergraduate research.

Avital Livny
Associate Professor
Poltical Science

Joaquín Rodríguez-López
Professor
Chemistry

Excellence in Undergraduate Advising

Recipients of this award are recognized for their excellence in and innovative approaches to undergraduate advising, and for having had a major impact on undergraduate students and their intellectual development through sustained academic advising relationships.

La Tanya Cobb
Associate Director for Undergraduate Student Services
Architecture

Bryan Dunne
Teaching Assistant Professor, Astronomy
Directory of the Campus Observatory
Director of Undergraduate Studies

Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

This award recognizes sustained excellence in and innovative approaches to undergraduate teaching and contributions beyond classroom instruction that have an overall positive impact on undergraduate student learning. Honorees are represented from three employee categories: Teaching Assistants, Specialized Faculty, and Faculty.