SoE Professors Receive 2022-2023 University-wide Faculty Excellence Awards
Each year, outstanding members of the Rutgers University community are selected by their peers to receive University-wide Faculty Year-End Excellence Awards. The ten award categories recognize exceptional teaching, research, and public service contributions by individual faculty who have been selected by their colleagues, with each awardee receiving a commemorative certificate and an honorarium.
School of Engineering (SoE) faculty Adam Gormley and Mehdi Javanmard were among the 29 2022-2023 awardees recently honored by Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway and Executive Vice President Prabhas Moghe.
“Professors Gormley and Javanmard are deserving recipients of these highly coveted faculty awards,” says SoE Dean Alberto Cuitiño. "Their awards acknowledge the dedication and commitment of our faculty in preparing our students with a world-class engineering education.”
Gormley, an associate professor and graduate admissions co-director in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, is a recipient of the Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. The award honors newly promoted and tenured faculty members whose contributions to teaching during their early years at Rutgers have been outstanding.
“I’m so honored to receive this award in large part because I did not expect it. It came as such a wonderful surprise,” says Gormley. “I spend my time at Rutgers balancing efforts in teaching and research, hoping my research might be recognized and even awarded if I am lucky. My teaching is entirely focused on my students’ experience and learning outcomes. Never once did I consider the possibility that I would receive a teaching award, since I know there are so many good and dedicated teachers at Rutgers.”
As a teacher, Gormley has looked to the late Nobel laureate Richard Feynman. “While he is best known for his groundbreaking research in theoretical physics, his ability to explain difficult concepts to a broad audience, in my opinion, was his greatest strength. It’s why I’ve looked up to him throughout my career,” explains Gormley. “His secret: insatiable curiosity and enthusiasm. I like to think my teaching style is inspired by his approach. I love my job and all the topics I discuss. I tell stories and bad jokes, which add a human element to my lectures and keeps them from being too stuffy – and lets my students know that it’s fun to love science and engineering.”
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering associate professor and Paul S. and Mary W. Monroe Endowed Faculty Scholar Mehdi Javanmard is a recipient of the Presidential Outstanding Faculty Scholar Award. It honors tenured faculty whose academic portfolios reflect outstanding research, scholarship, or creative work, as well as truly outstanding contributions to teaching, along with service to the Rutgers community and beyond.
“This award is truly an honor,” says Javanmard. “’I’m really grateful to Rutgers for all the support I’ve been given over the years I’ve been here. Rutgers University, the scientific community, and the broader community, particularly taxpayers, have given so much and created such a wonderful research ecosystem to thrive in, that I consider it my duty and great pleasure to give back by serving.”
Javanmard sees his award as an acknowledgement of the Rutgers Nanobioelectronics laboratory’s research activities in developing new biosensor technologies for improved diagnostics. Noting that students are the foundation of university research, he adds, “I’m truly indebted to the outstanding young scientists I’ve had the privilege to mentor in my lab.”
