Colorado State University

University Distinguished Professor

Camille T. Dungy
Department of English

Camille Dungy, an award-winning poet, Guggenheim Fellow and faculty member in the Department of English, has been named a University Distinguished Professor.

“Her record of creative activity is simply outstanding: scores of individual poems and essays, with over 25 works selected for anthologized publication, five sole-authored collections of poetry [and prose], and three edited collections from top-tier publishers, in addition to nearly 100 public appearances at esteemed venues such as the Poetry Foundation, the Newberry Library, Stanford University and Vanderbilt University,” College of Liberal Arts Dean Ben Withers wrote in an endorsement of Dungy’s nomination. “As her selection as one of the 16 writers for the New York Times 1619 Project shows, Professor Dungy’s work brings honor and recognition to Colorado State University in ways that few faculty can match.”

Dungy was nominated by three of her faculty peers in the department: Leslee Becker, Zach Hutchins and Sarah Sloane.

“Her career at CSU is one of a model teacher, scholar, writer and leader whose outreach helps our university inspire and retain our students of color,” they wrote in their nomination. “Professor Dungy reminds us that to be a moral human being, we are obliged to pay close attention to history and nature, especially in our complicity in the degradation of the environment. … A visionary leader, Professor Dungy’s career as a teacher and scholar fulfills UDP’s goal of recognizing ‘faculty who have demonstrated creative excellence and made major discoveries and achievements in their field.’”

In addition to winning a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019 and participating in the 1619 Project, a multidisciplinary initiative marking the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery, Dungy has received numerous honors. In 2018, she was the only person to be nominated for the Colorado Book Award in two categories,  winning in poetry for Trophic Cascade. She also won a 2018 National Endowment for the Arts Award in prose for her debut collection of essays, Guidebook to Relative Strangers:  Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History, which was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Her works have received admiring reviews from a variety of sources, from Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly to Elle, Essence, Bustle, Buzzfeed and Huffington Post. Dungy’s other poetry collections are Smith Blue, finalist for the William Carlos Williams Award; Suck on the Marrow, winner of the American Book Award; and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison, finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Poetry. Her poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Best American Poetry, Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, 100 Best African American Poems, the 2017 and 2019 Pushcart Prize Anthology, over 30 other anthologies, plus dozens of print and online venues, including Poetry, American Poetry Review, VQR, Guernica and Poets.org.

Dungy recently recorded a poetry reading in honor of Earth Day. She received her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1997.

University Distinguished Professor

N. LeRoy Poff
Department of Biology

In recognition of his international standing in science, teaching and outreach, N. LeRoy Poff, professor in the Department of Biology, has been named a Colorado State University Distinguished Professor, the University’s highest academic honor.

Poff is a river ecologist who actively influences and formulates policy related to freshwater management. Poff has made many contributions in the basic science of aquatic ecosystems and in developing sustainable management practices of aquatic resources in the United States  and abroad.  Since 2016 he has also held a partial academic appointment as Distinguished Professorial Chair in Riverine Science and Environmental Flows at the University of Canberra, Australia.

Poff was nominated for the University Distinguished Professor honor by four of his CSU colleagues: Michael Antolin, Kurt Fausch, Barry Noon and Reagan Waskom. In their nomination, they call Poff “one of the best-known freshwater ecologists in the world,” and a “recognized global leader in translating ecological science into water management policy.”

His primary contributions have been in melding ecology and hydrology to understand how temporal variation in flow regimes in rivers and streams preserve ecological integrity, biodiversity, and sustainability of aquatic life. “His work has been both conceptual and empirical, and ultimately transformative,” his colleagues wrote.

Poff’s 150-plus publications appear in top journals including Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Climate Change and Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, with more than 26,500 citations. He was elected a Fellow of the Society for Freshwater Science in 2019, a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America in 2016, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012. In 2019 he received the lifetime Award of Excellence from the Society for Freshwater Science.

From 2006 to 2018, Poff secured as principal investigator $2.55 million from six government agencies, and as co-principal investigator $2.85 million from four agencies. He has also mentored nine Ph.D. students and six master’s students and currently advises three Ph.D. students.

Poff was director of CSU’s Graduate Degree Program in Ecology from 2008 to 2016, during which time budget and enrollment for the program nearly doubled. At CSU, he has been recognized as a Monfort Professor (2005-2007), a College of Natural Sciences Professor Laureate (2010-2011), a CSU Resident Distinguished Ecologist (2016), and received CSU’s Scholarship Impact Award in 2016.

University Distinguished Professor

Susan VandeWoude
Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology

Dr. Susan VandeWoude, a renowned veterinary virologist, has been named a University Distinguished Professor, Colorado State University’s highest academic recognition.

VandeWoude, a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, currently serves as the director of the Colorado State University One Health Institute, which aims to benefit the health of animals, people and the environment by collaborating across disciplines. She has also served as associate dean for research in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at CSU and as director of Laboratory Animal Resources from 2007 to 2011.

A teacher and researcher, VandeWoude – who joined CSU in 1990 – has specialized in studying conditions affecting cats, both big and small, including Feline Immunodeficiency Virus or FVI, which can leave  animals vulnerable to other infections. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Morris Animal Foundation.

She was elected in 2019 to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors for scientists, in recognition of distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

VandeWoude is the second female researcher from CSU to join the NAS, and the 11^th faculty member elected to the reigning body of national thought leaders on all things scientific.

She was recently based at the University of Tasmania on a Fulbright scholarship, conducting research to better understand FIV, which is also an analogue for HIV in humans. Her stay in Australia was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic.

VandeWoude was nominated by Dr. Rodney Page, professor and the director of the Flint Animal Cancer Center at the James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital; Melissa Reynolds, professor and research associate dean in the College of Natural Sciences; and Mark Zabel, research associate dean in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology.

In the nomination, they cited VandeWoude’s “significant and considerable history as a leading scientist, mentor and administrator,” with an impact extending beyond CSU.

“Dr. VandeWoude possesses equal passion and success in training young scientists,” they wrote in the nomination letter. “This includes graduate students, veterinary students, undergraduate students and post-doctoral fellows, culminating in her nomination as outstanding mentor in CVMBS. She has led extraordinary efforts to provide funding and support for important and successful training programs at Colorado State University.”

She received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and subsequently received a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine.

Scholarship Impact Award

Mo Salman
Department of Clinical Sciences

Dr. Mo Salman, professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences and editor-in-chief of the Elsevier journal Preventive Veterinary Medicine, has received Colorado State University’s 2020 Scholarship Impact Award for the breadth of research he has undertaken and the significant impacts it has had on the field of veterinary medicine.

The Scholarship Impact Award recognizes distinguished CSU faculty whose scholarship has had a major impact nationally or internationally. Salman has been invited to share his research glonally, and has published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles.

Much of Salman’s work focuses on preventative veterinary medicine, comparative pathology and epidemiology. His work aims to improve animal health by finding ways to prevent and detect infectious diseases, benefiting animals of many types, and the humans who depend on them for livelihoods or companionship.

As a faculty member of CSU for over 30 years, Salman has received a number of accolades for his work around the world. He was the recipient of the 2010 Penn Vet World Leadership Award in recognition of global veterinarian activities; he was coordinator for the U.S. Department of State Biosecurity Engagement Program in Afghanistan in 2015-2016; and was one of six members appointed by the European Union Commission to address the classification of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease. Salman has helped to create dialogue between investigators, regulators, and industry stakeholders in 64 countries to help address this lethal livestock disease.

Now more than ever, it is clear that better understanding and preparing for zoonotic diseases that spread between animals and humans will be paramount to a healthy, thriving society. Dr. Salman is a leader in this pursuit, whose research is, and will continue to be, deserving of CSU’s prestigious Scholarship Impact Award.

Scholarship Impact Award

Darrell Whitley
Department of Computer Science

Darrell Whitley, a professor in the Department of Computer Science, is the recipient of this year’s Scholarship Impact Award in honor of the remarkable advancements he has made in data analysis, algorithms, and programming, benefiting researchers well beyond the realm of computer science.

The Scholarship Impact Award recognizes distinguished Colorado State University faculty whose scholarship has had a major impact nationally or internationally. Whitley fulfills the criteria for this award in not just one area of expertise, but several, including machine learning, evolutionary computation and genetic algorithms, where he developed a now widely used steady-state genetic computer algorithm.

Throughout his career, an exceptional 34 of which have been at CSU, Whitley has gravitated to solving the most challenging problems in computer science. He has developed methods for efficiently discovering solutions for non-deterministic polynomial-time hard (NP-hard) problems, which are sets of computationally intensive problems in computing, with papers in this area winning the best paper awards in 2009, 2015, and 2018.

Whitley is nationally and internationally recognized for his work and has brought great distinction to CSU, having published over 160 refereed conference papers and 55 journal publications. He has also served as editor in chief of the journal Evolutionary Computation.

At CSU, Whitley has held the positions of chair of the Department of Computer Science and associate dean in the College of Natural Sciences. As if these accomplishments weren’t enough, Whitley is also an award-winning bonsai cultivator, named 2018 Featured Bonsai Artist of the Year by the Denver Botanic Gardens.

His dedication to the University and the impact he has made during his time here make him exceedingly deserving of this year’s Scholarship Impact Award.

Board of Governors Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award

Karan Venayagamoorthy
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

For his dedication to student success and exceptional ability to meaningfully convey complex course material, Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Karan Venayagamoorthy has been selected for the Board of Governors Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, one of Colorado State University’s highest honors.

The two undergraduate core courses Venayagamoorthy teaches are considered among the most challenging, yet he routinely receives outstanding student evaluations. His students describe his contagious passion for his field of expertise and genuine commitment to their understanding.

“Students have noted the countless hours Karan has spent mentoring them one-on-one outside the classroom, skillfully guiding them to understand and even enjoy complex problems with incredible patience and methodical expertise,” said Department Head Charles Shackelford.

Although he expects a lot from his students, Venayagamoorthy is well-known and highly sought after for his energetic and effective teaching style. His colleagues also respect him as an inspirational teacher.

“He has a real ability to impact hundreds of students not only with a deep understanding of the subject matter, but with an enthusiasm for science and engineering,” said Professor Paul Heyliger.

Venayagamoorthy joined CSU in 2008, following his Ph.D. and postdoctoral studies at Stanford University. In addition to the two undergraduate core courses, he teaches four graduate courses that he developed, incorporating his own research in environmental fluid mechanics and hydraulics.

Venayagamoorthy has received numerous honors both as a researcher and educator. He was appointed Borland Professor of Fluid Mechanics in 2017 and named a Monfort Professor in 2015. Along with several department and college teaching awards over the past 12 years, in 2011 Venayagamoorthy received the Best Teacher Award from the CSU Alumni Association, recognizing him as one of the best teachers in the university.

Beyond the classroom, Venayagamoorthy is a leader in improving teaching effectiveness, curriculum and student retention. He has served on several committees with these goals, including as chair of the department’s Undergraduate Instruction Committee, which implemented curriculum changes critical for its undergraduate degree programs.

Standing ovations are not common following lectures, but at least one of Venayagamoorthy’s classes ended this way.

“At the end of Dr. Karan’s last lecture for my fluid mechanics course, my entire class stood up, applauded, and cheered in appraisal of Dr. Karan because that is how amazing he is as a professor,” said recent civil engineering graduate Janelle Stone. “If I had to name who was the largest influence and impact in my undergrad, I would name Dr. Karan without hesitation.”

Monfort Professor

Thomas R. Dunn
Department of Communication Studies

Thomas R. Dunn, an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies, has been named a Monfort Professor, one of Colorado State University’s highest honors.

A leading scholar in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer activism and memory, Dunn also has primary responsibility for training and mentoring all of the department’s graduate teaching assistants in the art of public speaking. Dunn has supervised and worked with 94 GTAs to teach more than 13,000 undergraduate students over the past eight years.

He also serves as Master Teacher Initiative coordinator for the College of Liberal Arts, in conjunction with The Institute for Teaching and Learning.

“In his short time in this role, feedback from faculty peers and college administrators has been uniform praise and applause for inaugurating discussions on campus about teaching that faculty actually want to engage in,” wrote his nominator, Meara Faw, an assistant professor of communication studies. “He is an acclaimed teacher, multiple award-winning researcher, highly sought-after advisor of graduate students, a ‘teacher of teachers,’ and exceptional servant of his department, college and discipline.”

In 2015, he was awarded the Excellence in Teaching Award from the College of Liberal Arts.

Dunn’s research focuses on the question of how LGBTQ individuals and communities leverage their shared pasts for social, political and cultural change in the present. For Dunn, this is a question of communication, as he is interested not simply in the historical facts about the queer past, but how those stories, events and memories can be used to facilitate change among various audiences, Faw wrote.

Dunn’s research has been widely acclaimed by his peers, with four top paper awards at national conferences, a top paper award at a regional conference, a journal article of the year award from a regional association, a chapter in an award-winning edited volume, two national association dissertation awards, a national association book award in the area of LGBT studies, and recognition as the 2017 premiere “New Investigator” in the subfield of critical/cultural communication.

Prior to arriving at Colorado State University, Dunn was a lecturer of rhetorical studies in the Department of Communication at the University of Georgia for 2011-12. Dunn earned his B.A. from the University of Richmond in 2002 with dual majors in rhetoric and communication studies and political science. He received his M.A. in communication and rhetorical studies at Syracuse University in 2005. Dunn earned his Ph.D. in communication from the University of Pittsburgh in 2011, along with a Ph.D. Certificate in the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.

Dunn plans to use the Monfort resources to complete an extensive new book project on public memories of the “Pink Triangles” – the nearly 100,000 homosexual men across Europe persecuted by the Nazi Regime between 1933 and 1945. In addition to archival, research and travel support over the next two years, Dunn intends to use the Monfort resources to facilitate a new course and public programming about these forgotten victims and what their stories can tell us about diversity and inclusion, human rights, social justice, and ethical and responsible citizenship in the 21st century.

Monfort Professorships are awarded to faculty who are considered rising stars in their fields. The two-year awards are made possible by the Monfort Family Foundation.

Monfort Professor

Meagan Schipanski
Department of Soil and Crop Sciences

Meagan Schipanski, associate professor of soil and crop sciences at Colorado State University, has established an international reputation as an outstanding scientist, working to improve understanding of basic plant-soil interactions and the resilience and sustainability of agroecosystems. Still in the early stages of her career at Colorado State University, she has initiated and led major multi-investigator/multi-institutional research projects, securing over $18 million in grant funding over the past six years, and has influenced her field with 40 publications, including highly cited papers, and several high-profile addresses at international conferences.

And now Schipanski has been named a Monfort Professor, one of CSU’s highest faculty honors.

“As a land-grant University, CSU’s mission is to create outstanding research and education and extension/outreach/service. Dr. Schipanski has excelled at all three” despite not having a formal Extension appointment, wrote University Distinguish Professor Keith Paustian in nominating Schipanski for the Monfort Professorship.

Schipanski’s department head, Matthew Wallenstein, called her a “superstar” who deserves recognition for “her leadership in interdisciplinary team science” and for demonstrating “research excellence without sacrificing excellence in teaching and engagement missions.”

Dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences James Pritchett echoed their support.

“Her record of accomplishments is impressive as she addresses the global grand challenges of food security and food sustainability,” he wrote in his nomination. “As an example, Dr. Schipanski leads a $10 million, multistate, multi-agency, transdisciplinary inquiry in improving water and nutrient utilization of the cropping systems overlying the Ogallala aquifer. Impressively, Meagan Schipanski began leading this project with less than three years of experience as a tenure track assistant professor.”

Pritchett also pointed to her strong relationships within the Colorado agricultural community as a trusted expert as well as her teaching and mentorship within the department and College.

“Dr. Schipanski is dedicated to an inclusive and diverse land-grant university,” he wrote. “She completed the Faculty Institute for Inclusive Excellence and as part of that program chose to complete a primary research project in the college that focuses on inclusive teaching practices that improve student success.”

As a Monfort Professor, Schipanski will research interactions between water, carbon and nitrogen cycling mediated by plant roots and microorganisms in the soil, in collaboration with experts in analytical chemistry and the soil microbiome. The Monfort grant will allow her to pursue research efforts on a larger scale to evaluate these relationships across varied systems and climates.

Made possible through the Monfort Family Foundation, Monfort Professorships are two-year awards that help CSU attract and retain talented young faculty.