Faculty Excellence awardees named

Six University of Iowa faculty members have been named recipients of the 2001 Regents Award for Faculty Excellence. Given by the Board of Regents, State of Iowa, the award honors faculty members for work representing a significant contribution to excellence in public education.

Kate Gfeller

Kate Gfeller
Gfeller, professor in music and in speech pathology and audiology, is principal investigator of the NIH-funded music perception project for the Iowa Cochlear Implant Clinical Research Center in the Department of Otolaryngology. She is internationally known for her research regarding music perception of cochlear implant recipients, and she has developed innovative approaches to aural rehabilitation for adults and children who use assistive hearing devices. She received the Burlington Northern Faculty Achievement Award in 1991 for excellence in integrating research and teaching, and the National Association for Music Therapy Research Award in 1996. She has served as an associate dean for the College of Liberal Arts (1993-96) and on numerous University committees, including the President’s Council for Strategic Implementation, the Faculty Senate Governmental Relations Committee, the Graduate Council, and the Executive Committees of the College of Liberal Arts and of the School of Music. She is a member of the board of directors for Iowa City Hospice.

	Gary W. Hunninghake

Gary W. Hunninghake
Hunninghake, professor of internal medicine and director of the Division of Pulmonary/Critical Care/Occupational Medicine, was named to the first Sterba Chair for Pulmonary Research in 2000.

He is recognized as an expert on interstitial lung disease as both idiopathic and secondary disease. He leads a successful academic program in pulmonary immunology from functional studies to the basic molecular aspects of signal transduction in pulmonary cells. He received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Thoracic Society for his excellence in research. He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He has served on study sections at the NIH and is an associate editor of the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology. Hunninghake is director of the new Program in Translational Medicine that offers postgraduate training in the translation of basic science observations into bedside reality. He served as president of the American Federation for Clinical Research (1986-87); president of the American Thoracic Society (1994-95); and president of the Central Society for Clinical Research (1997-98). He is presently chair of the scientific review committee, Asthma Clinical Research Network, NHLBI; of the LAM Data Safety Monitoring Board, NHLBI; and of the awards committee, American Thoracic Society.

Jean C. Love

Jean C. Love
Love is the Martha Ellen Tye Professor in the College of Law. Her law teaching career spans a 30-year period of extraordinary classroom success. Besides her 10 years at Iowa, Love has taught at five other distinguished public universities: the University of California (Berkeley), the University of California (Davis), UCLA, Texas, and Wisconsin. Always a popular yet demanding teacher, she won annual awards for outstanding teaching at three of the aforementioned schools. Love’s scholarship in the field of torts, remedies, and discrimination law is eclectic, extensive, and nationally recognized. She is the co-author of two widely used textbooks in remedies and in the introduction to law. She served as co-president of the Society of American Law Teachers from 1993 to 1995. On campus and around the country, Love is known as a tireless leader in efforts to end discriminatory practices based on gender and sexual orientation. She has chaired numerous campus and national groups charged with expanding the academic opportunities available to groups historically underrepresented in higher education.

	Jeffrey Pessin

Jeffrey Pessin
Pessin is University of Iowa Foundation Distinguished Professor of Physiology and Biophysics. Pessin joined the faculty in 1983 and is recognized as a leader in molecular and cellular endocrinology, with a special focus on mechanisms of insulin action at receptor and post-receptor levels and the structure and function of the glucose transport system. He has a large and very active research laboratory that is at the forefront in the investigation of molecular and cellular mechanisms of hormone regulation. Honors he has received include the 1996 Outstanding Scientific Achievement award of the American Diabetes Association, the 1997 Novo Nordisk Lectureship at the University of Toronto, and the 1998 Mary Jane Kugel Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. Pessin teaches in both the health sciences and graduate programs and provides research training and mentorship for many students and fellows. Pessin was the first director of the Bioscience Program, established in 1997. He has been associate director of the University of Iowa Diabetes and Endocrinology Research Center since 1991. He is an active member and contributor to professional societies and lectures at many national and international professional and scientific meetings. In 1994 he was named editor-in-chief of the endocrinology/metabolism section of the American Journal of Physiology. He is a member of several editorial boards and a reviewer for many scientific journals. He participates actively in service to federal and private funding agencies through membership on study sections and review committees, most notably for NIH and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and he is currently a member of the NIH Diabetes Research Working Group.

Robert Wallace

Robert Wallace
Wallace is a professor of epidemiology and in 1999 was awarded the Irene Ensminger Stecher Cancer Professorship. His career at Iowa began in 1972 and he has been head of the Division of Epidemiology and head of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health. He served as director of the UI Cancer Center and is the interim director of the Center on Aging. He has been involved nationally with the Epidemiology Council of the American Heart Association and the American College of Preventive Medicine. He recently served as a committee member and chair of several local and national committees including the Epidemiology and Disease Control Study Section at NIH, Preventive Medicine Test Committee of the National Board of Medical Examiners, the Breast Cancer Task Force for the National Cancer Institute, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, and the Institute of Medicine Committee on Persian Gulf War Veterans. In 1998 he was awarded the Lilienfeld Award for Excellence in Teaching of Epidemiology by the American Public Health Association. Wallace’s research has made an impact in several domains including measles and immunization, heart disease, and cancer. One of his major efforts has been the Iowa 65+ Rural Health Study. He currently is leading the Women’s Health Initiative in Iowa. He was recently named chair of the Board on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention of the Institute of Medicine. He has published widely. The American Teachers of Preventive Medicine awarded him the Duncan Clark Award for 2001 for his record of achievement in teaching, research, and service in public health and preventive medicine.

	Edward Wasserman

Edward Wasserman
Wasserman is the Stuit Professor of Experimental Psychology. Wasserman is recognized as one of the top scholars in the country in the area of animal learning and animal cognition. His work on categorization and visual perception in pigeons is regularly published in the top journals in psychology and has also been written up in the New York Times. He has served as the associate editor of Learning and Motivation, the president of the Comparative Cognition Society, and a member of the Governing Board of the Psychonomic Society. In 1994 he was named the University’s Van Allen Natural Sciences Fellow. Wasserman is particularly noted for his outstanding record of mentoring independent research students at all levels including honors students, high school students, and minority students from other institutions who have spent summers working in his laboratory, as well as his graduate students who routinely receive significant departmental and national recognition for their research. Finally, Wasserman has been exemplary in his service to the University including serving as president of the Faculty Senate during 1997-1998.