Colorado State University

University Distinguished Professor

Debbie Crans
Professor of Chemistry and Cell and Molecular Biology
Department of Chemistry and the Cell and Molecular Biology Program

Over her long and extremely productive career, Professor Debbie Crans has made a significant impact in the areas of inorganic, organic, biological and medicinal chemistry. Her contributions to chemical research, to excellence in research and teaching at Colorado State University, and to the national and international science community merit her selection as a University Distinguished Professor.

As program chair for the Division of Inorganic Chemistry, she championed inclusion of coordination chemistry at the bi-annual American Chemical Society meetings, which has resulted in a resurgence of the field. Her colleagues at CSU and at institutions around the world have benefited from her energy, her imaginative application of chemical concepts and her commitment to bring scientists together to share their collective knowledge.

From 2015 to 2017, Crans was Professor Laureate in the College of Natural Sciences. In 2004, she received her first international award from the International Vanadium Society, the Vanadis award, acknowledging her tremendous contributions bridging vanadium chemistry and biochemistry. In 2024, Crans will be the third woman to chair the 45th International Coordination Chemistry Conference that will bring around 2,000 researchers to Fort Collins after more than 40 years overseas. Her national and international awards include the 2019 American Chemical Society Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry; the 2019 Violet Diller Award for Professional Excellence from Iota Sigma Pi; and a 2017 ChemLuminary Award from the Young Chemists Committee. In 2016, she was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, she received the 2015 Arthur P. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society, and in 2014 she was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

University Distinguished Professor

Kathleen Galvin
Professor in Anthropology and Geography
Department of Anthropology and Geography

Professor Kathleen Galvin has conducted interdisciplinary social-ecological systems research for more than 40 years, serving as a pioneer in this field. Her scholarship focuses on pastoralists in African, North American, and Asian arid and semi-arid rangelands. Her work addresses issues of food security of pastoralists, land-use change, conservation, climate variability, resilience and adaptation strategies, and co-production of knowledge with pastoral communities.

Galvin founded The Africa Center, a university forum for solutions-oriented research in Africa. The Center partners with organizations throughout the world to link diverse types of knowledge (e.g., local, traditional, scientific) to identify and solve social and environmental problems on the continent. All her research is inclusive and interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary in nature and has resulted in nearly $22 million as PI and Co-PI.

Her accolades include the 2016-17 College of Liberal Arts John N. Stern Distinguished Professor Award, which recognizes a career of outstanding achievement in research, teaching, and service. She won the 2015 Exemplary Project Award and W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award from the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities for community work in Africa (with Robin Reid, Randall Boone and Stacy Lynn).

In 2013 she received the Jean Rouch Award for Collaborative Filmmaking (with postdoctoral fellow Joana Roque de Pinho) from the American Anthropological Association for the film Maasai Voices on Climate Change. In 2012, the Ecological Society of America gave Galvin the Sustainability Science Award in Recognition of an Outstanding Contribution to Sustainability Science (with Robin Reid and others). That same year, the American Anthropological Association made her a member of the Global Climate Change Task Force. And she was a lead author on the U.N. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Global Assessment, 2016-2019.

University Distinguished Professor

Temple Grandin
Professor of Animal Science
College of Agricultural Sciences

Professor Temple Grandin has revolutionized animal care and welfare globally. Grandin has designed facilities throughout the world, and in North America, more than half of the cattle processed in packing plants are handled in a center track restrainer system that she designed.

She teaches courses on livestock behavior and facility design and conducts applied animal handling research at CSU, while also consulting with the livestock industry on facility design, livestock handling and animal welfare. She has appeared on numerous television and radio shows within the U.S. and internationally, and has been featured in People magazine, The New York Times, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, The New York Times Book Review, and Discover magazine. In 2010, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the U.S.

She has authored over 400 articles in both scientific journals and livestock periodicals on animal handling, welfare and facility design. Additionally, Grandin has authored many books, such as Thinking in Pictures, Livestock Handling and Transport, Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals, Guide to Working with Farm Animals and Humane Livestock Handling. Her books Animals in Translation and Animals Make Us Human were both on the New York Times bestseller list. Her latest book, Calling All Minds, was a New York Times bestseller for middle school students. Her life story also was made into the HBO movie entitled Temple Grandin starring Claire Danes, which won seven Emmy awards and a Golden Globe.

In 2017, she was inducted into The National Women’s Hall of Fame and in 2018 made a fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was named one of the top 10 Best College Professors in 2020 by The CEO Magazine. Grandin has received numerous awards, including the Meritorious Achievement Award from the Livestock Conservation Institute, and was named a Distinguished Alumni at Franklin Pierce College and received an honorary doctorate from McGill University, University of Illinois, Texas A&M University, Carnegie Mellon University and Duke University.

She has also won prestigious industry awards, including the Richard L. Knowlton Award from the North American Meat Institute/Meat Marketing and Technology Magazine, the Industry Advancement Award from the American Meat Institute, and the Beef Top 40 industry leaders and Lifetime Achievement Award from The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. In 2011, Grandin was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. In 2015, she was given the Distinguished Service Award by the American Farm Bureau Federation and Meritorious Award from the World Organization for Animal Health and, in 2007, she received the Autism Society of America Founder’s Award.

University Distinguished Professor

Wes Kenney
Professor of Music and Director of Orchestras
School of Music, Theatre, and Dance

In addition to his work with the CSU orchestra, Professor of Music and Director of Orchestras Wes Kenney is the conductor of the Fort Collins Symphony, Opera Fort Collins and the Denver Young Artists Orchestra.

He is considered one of the most outstanding members of his discipline, where scholarship is demonstrated through music engagement with the community. He is one of the founders of CSU’s Master of Music, Music Education-Conducting Specialization. Kenney maintains a rigorous schedule of performances as a conductor and guest conductor, which is represented by over 1,000 conducting appearances locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Of significant note is Kenny’s dedication to maintaining live performance during the global pandemic, while adhering to risk mitigation protocols, both at CSU and professionally. In this regard, CSU, the Fort Collins Symphony, and DYAO have been at the forefront nationally in bringing back live orchestral music to the stage.

In 2021, he led the Fort Collins Symphony to achieve First Prize in Orchestral Performance at the professional level and Second Prize in Programming from The American Prize. In 2020, he was awarded the Honored Artist from The American Prize, and Kenney was awarded the Ernst Bacon Memorial Prize for the Performance of American Music. The American Prize is considered the nation’s most comprehensive series of contests in the musical and theater arts, designed to evaluate, recognize and reward the best performers, composers, conductors, ensembles and directors in the United States. In addition to these awards, the Fort Collins Symphony was selected in 2021 to represent Colorado for The United Symphonies of America.

University Distinguished Professor

Susan van den Heever
Professor of Atmospheric Science
Department of Atmospheric Science

Professor Susan van den Heever’s brilliant scientific mind, her tremendous stature in the field of atmospheric science, and her record of leadership guiding national and international planning of large-scale efforts to advance knowledge of the aerosol-cloud-climate system led to her nomination as University Distinguished Professor.

NASA announced its newest Earth Venture Mission, INCUS (INvestigation of Convective UpdraftS). Dr. van den Heever is the PI of the $177 million mission, which will include three satellites flying in tight coordination to study the behavior of storms in the tropics and help improve the representation of these systems in weather and climate models. Competition to land such a satellite mission is fierce and was successful due to her exceptional leadership of a large team of scientists and engineers from several universities, NASA labs and private aerospace companies. She has made pioneering contributions to the understanding of the microphysics and dynamics of storm systems using both modeling and measurement approaches.

She is a global leader in the study of storm structure and development, including the development of convective cold pools associated with storm propagation and hazards. She is now also a global leader in the development and application of in situ and remote sensing approaches to observe clouds and storms. She and her team have pioneered the use of fleets of drones to penetrate and document the development of convective storm systems. She has been a leader in major international field campaigns.

Her accolades include being named a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and receiving the MIT Houghton Lectureship, both in 2021. She received the American Meteorological Society’s Edward N. Lorenz Teaching Excellence Award in 2018, and the American Geophysical Union’s ASCENT award in 2016. She received the Editor’s Citation for Excellence in Refereeing in Nature in 2015 and was named a Monfort Professor at CSU in 2015.

Board of Governors Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award

Elizabeth Sink
Master Teaching Instructor
Department of Communication Studies

Elizabeth Sink is a master teaching instructor in the Department of Communication Studies with a passion for facilitating healthy engagement across diverse identities. She has taught at Colorado State University since 2004 and teaches an average of 11 undergraduate courses each year. She has taught roughly 180 three-credit courses, or nearly 15,000 undergraduate student credit hours, counting nearly 5,000 students in her classes over her 18-year teaching career at CSU.

Her students comment on how she is thoughtful and reflective about the environment she cultivates for her classes, and she uses an impressive array of strategies to ensure that her students are cared for and valued in the classroom and can take risks allowing them the possibility of transformation.

Over the years, a significant number of her colleagues who hold high credentials in teaching across multiple disciplines have recognized her pedagogical model. Sink has earned eight teaching honors, including the Excellence in Teaching Award from the College of Liberal Arts, the Instructional Innovation in Service-Learning Award from the CSU Institute of Learning and Teaching, the Instructor Appreciation Award from the Department of Communication Studies, the Ann Gill Excellence in Teaching Award and the Loren W. Crabtree Global Teaching Scholar designation. She wins these awards because of her innovative and constantly evolving pedagogical approach.

Sink is regularly invited to guest lecture in a variety of classes across the university, in programs such as the Global Villages Academic Learning Community and the Presidential Leadership program. She cultivates relationships with a broad range of campus teaching resources, such as The Institute for Learning and Teaching, the Faculty Institute for Inclusive Excellence, the Center for Public Deliberation and the Key Communities Program, to constantly challenge herself to improve and to provide fellow colleagues and her own students with opportunities and fresh instructional strategies.

Co-curricularly, she collaborates with her students and several faith-communities in hosting two large-scale annual events that help bridge connections for those who orient around belief-based identities differently, including “Interfaith Feast of Gratitude” and “Better Together Day.” Sink has also served as faculty advisor for CSU’s Multi-Faith & Belief Student Council and the ASCSU Food Security Advisory Council, as well as mentoring numerous undergraduate and graduate students.

Sink has become an institutionally, regionally and nationally recognized spokesperson in advocating for engagement across lines of diverse religious and nonreligious identities. She has presented about multi-faith and belief diversity at CSU’s Diversity Symposium; at TILT’s Professional Development Institute; at several academic conferences; at nonprofit seminars; in radio, newspaper and podcast interviews; as well as in a TEDTalk: “Interfaith Cooperation: An Invitation for All Beliefs.”

This year, Sink is part of the inaugural cohort of the CSU’s Presidential Leadership Fellowship. She is mentored by Blanche Hughes, vice president for student affairs, and works closely with the Rams Against Hunger staff on food security resources.

University Distinguished Teaching Scholar

Meena Balgopal
Professor
Biology, Natural Sciences

Professor Meena Balgopal is an accomplished and impactful faculty member.

She serves as a role model through the ways she runs her courses, through her scholarship on STEM learning for all, and as a leader helping to implement evidence-based change in university life and instruction. Balgopal helped draft the current CSU guidelines for evaluating effective teaching, has received over $7 million in funding from agencies ranging from the USDA to NASA, and her work has reached populations as diverse as K-12 to monks in Tibet.

Her research group is interested in how people make meaning of natural science concepts. She explores meaning making (interpretation) and learning (storing and recalling information) by studying how people speak, read and write about science. The group conducts its work in diverse field sites: undergraduate science and engineering classrooms, K-12 classrooms and informal science education experiences (field trips, museums, school gardens).

The research informs how science educators can support science learning. The findings inform students so they can become more aware of their own conceptual difficulties and be independent learners, more inclusive and productive teammates during group work, and better communicators of science. The findings inform instructors of science so they can support student learning through writing activities, science communication skills and critical thinking during problem-based learning activities.

Monfort Professor

Marcela Henao-Tamayo
Associate Professor
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

Associate Professor Marcela Henao-Tamayo has made numerous key discoveries in her career that have significantly increased our understanding of fundamental aspects of vaccines as well as immunological aspects of the TB bacillus pathogenesis.

Some of this work includes important contributions to the discovery of the novel concept of “Trained Immunity.” Her work on the Bacillus Calmette–Guérin vaccine has provided key data establishing the relevance in timing of the secondary booster, and she has pioneered innovative methods to study immune responses.

Henao-Tamayo has been a pioneer in ensuring that animal models of disease mimic “reality” as much as possible when it comes to infection in humans. She performed groundbreaking studies that take into account environmental factors for vaccine responses. She has focused on not just teaching immunology concepts to students, but also teaching students how to study immunology. Her push towards this type of applied teaching puts the tools in the hands of the students to not only learn, but also to explore.

Monfort Professor

Matthew Hitt
Associate Professor
Political Science

Associate Professor Matthew Hitt is one of the top scholars of his generation in the field of political science. Scholars nationwide know him for his innovative, thoughtful approaches to understanding how American political actors and institutions arrive at decisions.

Three published books and over a dozen peer-reviewed journal articles have established Hitt as a top producer. Hitt’s proposed project for the Monfort Professor award aims to address this question: Has social media changed the way Americans behave politically or rather has it just made visible a host of effects that were always present? He will examine this question through the creation and leverage of a major new database, recording the increased availability of broadband internet and other technologies geographically and over time.

The award will support a major national survey of American citizens, along with the drafting and publication of a book manuscript tentatively titled, “Likes Before Facts: How New Technologies Endanger American Democracy.” The book will pinpoint the extent to which America’s changing media and technological institutions impact political behavior and outcomes. Hitt will use a portion of the award to endow a new annual lecture series based on the themes of democratic governance, civic engagement, civic education and political polarization.