Annual Faculty Excellence Awards

2024 Faculty Award Winners:

Eight SMC faculty at 2024 Scholars Reception — Celebrating scholarship, teaching, and service: from left, **Corey Cook**, Provost and Executive Vice President; **Yin Yuan**, English; **Elise Miller**, Collegiate Seminar; **Jennifer Heung**, Associate Provost of Faculty Affairs; **Nekesha Williams**, Environmental & Earth Science; **Mark Lingwood**, Chemistry; **Michael Viola**, Ethnic Studies; **Cathy Finger-Podolsky**, Accounting. Not pictured: **Dr. Costanza Dopfel**, Art and Art History. / *Photo by Richard Trinh*

Faculty Award Winners

Yin Yuan, PhD, English | Early Career Award
Mark Lingwood, PhD, Chemistry | Service Award
Nekesha Williams, PhD, Environmental & Earth Science | Teaching Excellence Award
Costanza Dopfel, PhD, Art and Art History | Outstanding Scholar Award
Michael Viola, PhD, Ethnic Studies | Inclusive Excellence, Justice and Liberation Award
Elise Miller, PhD, Collegiate Seminar | Dr. John Dennis Distinguished Teaching Award
Cathy Finger-Podolsky, PhD, Accounting | Advising Excellence Award

Learn More About SMC's Professor of the Year Award

Each year, Saint Mary’s College of California recognizes tenure-track faculty members for their excellence in several key areas including: teaching excellence, early career achievement, service, advising excellence, inclusive excellence, justice & liberation, and outstanding scholarship.

Each award recipient receives a monetary award, certificate, and their name will be displayed on a plaque located in the Academic Affairs Library.

In addition, the Saint Mary's College annual Professor of the Year Award honors an outstanding, full-time member of the Saint Mary’s College faculty. Tenured faculty currently on reduced services are also eligible.

The Professor of the Year award is designed to recognize distinguished achievement in teaching and/or scholarship by a faculty member of the College. The recipient receives an honorarium and delivers a formal presentation on a subject of his/her choosing before the faculty and invited guests at a reception in the spring.

Provost Grant Recipients 2024

Provost’s Faculty Research Grant Recipients: Catherine Davalos, MFA; Kathryn Koo, PhD; Chi-An W Emhoff, PhD; Andrew Mount, EdD; in second row Joel Burley, PhD; Bedford Palmer, PhD; Stacey Robbins, PhD

Provost’s Faculty Research Grant Recipients

Joel Burley, PhD | Air Quality Monitoring at SMC and Remote NPS and USFS Sites
Catherine Marie Davalos, MFA | Nepantla (dance theater work)
Andrew Mount, EdD | Taxonomy of Forms and Symbols for “Precium Vitae Formulae—Pretium Rectum Est” (Value of Life Formula—The Price is Right)
Chi-An Emhoff, PhD | Exercise Metabolism and Performance Across the Menstrual Cycle
Kathryn Koo, PhD | Repair: The Case for Black Reparations in Chesnutt, Faulkner, and Morrison
Bedford Palmer II, PhD | Shame, Guilt, and Empowerment as Moderators of Social Justice Education
Stacey Robbins, PhD | Jewish American identity development in times of crisis