Three at Florida Tech Earn Faculty Excellence Awards

April 26, 2006

Three Florida Tech faculty earned the university's 2006 Faculty Excellence Awards for outstanding performance. They are Dr. Monica Baloga, assistant professor of chemistry, the Kerry Bruce Clark Award for Excellence in Teaching; Dr. Howell Heck, associate professor of civil engineering, the Andrew W. Revay Jr. Award for Excellence in Service; and Dr. Ralph Turingan, associate professor of biological sciences, the Award for Excellence in Research.

Baloga has earned an outstanding reputation as an exemplary teacher among her faculty peers and her students. She has received numerous teaching awards from student organizations and a President's Award for University Excellence for the past two years. She was awarded a Faculty Summer Fellowship to produce an on-line laboratory manual for organic chemistry, which was enthusiastically received by students. Also, she serves as a National Science Foundation Review Panelist and advised the Benjamin Cummings publishing company in the development of a new general chemistry textbook.

Heck is the outreach coordinator for the Department of Civil Engineering. In this capacity he creates and operates civil engineering summer camps, is the Florida Tech representative at all Brevard Regional Science and Engineering Fairs and at the International Science and Engineering Fair. He also writes grants and procures financial support for summer camps from the National Association of Women in Construction, Associated Builders and Contractors of Brevard, the Civil Engineering Construction Industry Advisory Board and many of its members.

Turingan has received $627,000 in research funds and equipment since 2004. Among his grants were $200,000 from FILDUTCH Ventures and $120,000 from the Florida Sea Grant program, received last fall. The funding supports his research on the biology of coral reef fish larvae through the end of 2007. He was also awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholar grant which will send him to the Philippines May to December 2006 to lead the marine fish biology course, "Inquiry-based Teaching of Advances in marine Fish Biology: Towards Sustainable Fisheries in the Philippines."

The three were honored at Florida Tech's Spring 2006 Honors Convocation on April 20.