PULLMAN, Wash. – Four Washington State University faculty members have been named recipients of the 2012-13 Sahlin awards, to be presented at WSU’s annual Showcase Celebrating Excellence Recognition Banquet on March 29.
Showcase, WSU’s annual celebration of faculty, staff and student achievement, also includes the Distinguished Faculty Address (March 28); the Academic Showcase display of faculty, staff and student work (March 29); and SURCA, the Showcase for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (March 29).
Reservations will open later this month at the Showcase website, http://showcase.wsu.edu.
Kerry W. Hipps, professor and chair in the Department of Chemistry, earned the Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award for Research, Scholarship and Arts.
Working at the interface between physics and chemistry, he is regarded as a pioneer in the field of physical chemistry. He is best known for his seminal work in scanning tunneling microscopy. His STM images have graced the covers of six editions of prestigious journals, including the Journal of Physical Chemistry, Langmuir and the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Hipps has received the Washington State Teachers Association Teacher of the Year Award and the WSU Graduate and Professional Students Outstanding Advisor Award. In 2002, he gave the 68th WSU Distinguished Faculty Address. He is a fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the American Chemical Society, the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Catherine A. Elstad, clinical associate professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and associate dean, Honors College, earned the Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award for Instruction.
She has won the College of Pharmacy teaching award for the last three years and 11 times in the last 20 years. During her 26 years at WSU, she has taught many courses – including eight different courses in the last five years – for both the pharmacy and honors colleges.
Elstad has contributed to improving instruction at WSU as an inaugural and active member of the President’s Teaching Academy, serving on the academy’s revisioning committee for the learning goals for undergraduates. She chaired the universitywide general education committee, is on the faculty affairs subcommittee of the Faculty Senate and served as associate dean of student services in the College of Pharmacy.
Amy S. Wharton, professor of sociology and director of the College of Arts and Sciences at WSU Vancouver, earned the Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award for Leadership.
She has held leadership roles on both the Pullman and Vancouver campuses, helping integrate faculty and programs across the multicampus system. Within the sociology department, her work has been vital in shaping departmental structures and processes.
Recognized as one of the nation’s leading sociologists in gender and organizational research, Wharton has had her research published in many peer-reviewed journals and books. She is editor of the textbook, “Working in America: Continuity, Conflict and Change,” and past editor of the flagship journal Social Problems. She is a co-principal investigator on WSU’s National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant and is coordinator of the ADVANCE at WSU research team.
Clayton J. Mosher, professor of sociology at WSU Vancouver, earned the Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award for Outreach and Engagement.
He promotes positive change in society by sharing his professional expertise with the larger community of criminal justice practitioners and by bringing community representatives of the criminal justice system to WSU for panels, conferences and classroom presentations to share knowledge and experience for the benefit of students and local community members.
Mosher’s expertise is valued on a range of topics, from drug trafficking to racially-biased policing to substance use and abuse. He has reached out to, educated and collaborated with policymakers, criminal justice personnel, the press and medical professionals. He is known for integrating local and academic knowledge, especially of the full range of criminal justice, mental health and social services in Clark County, Wash., and the metropolitan Portland, Ore., area.