2026 Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award
The Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award recognizes excellence in teaching and advising sustained over many years.
This year’s recipient has taught at Texas A&M since 1995 and has been a full professor since 2007. His primary course, Fundamentals of Ecology, has reached more than 12,000 students, and he has long coordinated and mentored teaching assistants for its laboratory sections. Since 2024, he has also taught Reflective and Professional Writing, Professional Writing, and the First-Year Experience course for incoming students in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
In addition to membership in SRM, he belongs to the Ecological Society of America, the International Association of Landscape Ecology, and Sigma Xi.
A hallmark of his career has been a commitment to improving teaching through evidence-based innovation. Beginning in 2006, he developed five web-based “authentic inquiry” projects for ecology courses and assessed their effects on student learning, finding significant positive outcomes.
He also led a major redesign of Fundamentals of Ecology to strengthen active and blended learning, deepen understanding of ecology and the scientific process, and improve critical-thinking skills. Enhanced assessment practices contributed to lower drop-fail-withdrawal rates and reduced achievement gaps among underrepresented, first-generation, and lower-income students.
Students consistently highlight his engaging teaching, patience, and dedication to mentorship. One student noted that he used polling, think-pair-share activities, and personalized follow-up resources to engage more than 230 students in a single class. Another described his thoughtful mentorship as an undergraduate researcher, emphasizing his encouragement of independent thinking, weekly meetings, and unwavering patience.
Colleagues describe him as an exceptionally effective teacher whose continual innovations are guided by assessment and educational research. They note that his influence extends well beyond the classroom through mentorship of faculty and more than 50 teaching assistants. His scholarly approach to teaching, grounded in continuous improvement and evidence-based practice, has made him a widely respected leader in undergraduate education.
