Three at Florida Tech Earn Faculty Excellence Awards

– Three Florida Tech faculty earned the university’s 2005 Faculty Excellence Awards for outstanding performance. They are Dr. Richard Tankersley, Department of Biological Sciences, the Kerry Bruce Clark Award for Excellence in Teaching; Dr. Ming Zhang, Department of Physics and Space Sciences, the Award for Excellence in Research; and Dr. Terry Oswalt, Department of Physics and Space SciencesDepartment of Physics and Space Sciences, who the Andrew W. Revay Jr. Award for
Excellence in Service.

L to R: Dr. Dwayne McCay, provost; Dr. Richard Tankersley; Dr. Ming Zhang; Dr. Terry Oswalt; and Dr. Anthony Catanese, president
Tankersley has established the boilerplate for how laboratory ecology should be taught to undergraduates. He has worked with the local K-12 education
administrators and teachers to develop a new set of learning modules for high school integrated science students that use ocean exploration an over-arching
theme. To implement a partnership with area high school science teachers, he recently secured a 3-year, $1.7 million grant from the National Science
Foundation to start the new In-STEP (Integrated Science Teaching Enhancement Partnership) program.

Physicist Zhang has earned an outstanding reputation in the community and is known internationally for making important contributions to understanding
cosmic-ray propagation using the new Markov Stochastic Process Theory, of which he is a leading expert. He was the winner of the American Geophysical
Union’s prestigious Scarf Award and has made contributions to Ulysses and Voyager missions. His success is mirrored in his record of obtaining funding-over
$1 million-which include several large awards from NASA.

Oswalt, an astronomer, has brought many funding opportunities to the attention of the faculty and has helped to implement several of them. His workshops on
how to succeed with a National Science Foundation grant proposal also have been met with faculty appreciation. Oswalt leads the project to construct the
largest telescope in Florida on the Florida Tech campus. According to colleague, Dr. Marc Baarmand, Students seek his advice and help not only for course
materials, but on all aspects of academic and campus life.”

The three were honored at Florida Tech’s Spring 2005 Honors Convocation on April 21.