College Teaching Awards
The College Teaching Awards honor exemplary teaching by faculty members within the seven colleges at Carnegie Mellon. Each college selects their own recipient(s) based on specific criteria and they are chosen throughout the academic year, depending on the college's award cycle. The most recent awardees are again recognized at the Celebration of Education Award Ceremony.
College of Engineering
Benjamin Richard Teare Teaching Award
Jiang-Gang (Jimmy) Zhu
ABB Professor; Director, Data Storage Systems Center
Benjamin Richard Teare Teaching Award
Gregory Kesden
Associate Teaching Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
College of Fine Arts
Henry Hornbostel Teaching Award
Lance LaDuke
Associate Teaching Professor in Euphonium and Music Entrepreneurship
Lance LaDuke was internationally known as an educator, writer, speaker, and performer (euphonium, trombone, singer, and enthusiastic ukulele-ist). Lance was the Associate Teaching Professor in Euphonium and Music Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University. His additional duties at CMU included serving as the Freshman Advisor, Coordinator of Special and Creative Projects, director of the Tartan Tuba Band, and co-creator of the Exploded Ensemble, an experimental electro-acoustic ensemble. Lance was a former member of the international touring quintet Boston Brass, the United States Air Force Band in Washington DC, and the River City Brass Band, the only full-time professional brass band in the country.
Lance performed with some of the finest ensembles in the country, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Brass Band of Battle Creek, and the Pittsburgh Symphony. He taught and/or gave masterclasses at some of the world’s finest universities and conservatories, including Juilliard, the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and the Tatui Conservatory in Brazil. He appeared on over thirty recordings, produced ten others, and toured extensively throughout North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, performing in over 25 countries and all 50 states. His performances were seen and heard on countless television and radio programs and Lance appeared on stage with such legendary artists as Henry Mancini, Doc Severinsen, Morton Gould, Morgan Freeman, and Frederick Fennell.
A graduate of Michigan State University, Lance received a bachelor’s degree in Music Education, with a cognate in English. After graduate study at the University of Akron (euphonium performance) and George Mason University (instrumental conducting),
Lance joined the United States Air Force Band in Washington D.C. While there, he performed for two presidents, countless dignitaries, and heads of state, and in hundreds of protocol functions, ceremonies, and public relations tours. He maintained a Top Secret security clearance, played for well over a million people from the White House to Red Square, and can be seen (with a magnifying glass) in the movie A Clear and Present Danger.
Lance wrote for countless organizations, including sketches for radio, stage, and themed attractions. He was a member of several improv comedy troupes, co-wrote and produced (with Deanna Swoboda) Band Blast Off, a band recruiting DVD, and formerly served as co-director of the Savvy Arts Venture Challenge. He worked with VH1 Save the Music, performed at TEDxCMU, and has a song headed to the moon as part of the CMU MoonArk project launched aboard the Astrobotic Peregrine spacecraft. He was the creator of the Modern Musicking Center and former co-host (with Andrew Hitz) of the Brass Junkies Podcast. His comedy songs, including a touching elegy to a dead goldfish and a song about getting underwear for Christmas, are available for viewing through lanceladuke.com.
His newest project was The GAME of Innovation, available through McGraw Hill Publishing.
Lance passed away in December 2023 after a tragic accident, and is mourned by the entire CMU and School of Music community.
Dietrich College of Humanities & Social Sciences
Elliott Dunlap Smith Award for Distinguished Teaching and Educational Service
Gang Liu
Teaching Professor, Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics
I joined the Department of Modern Languages in 2010, and have developed and taught Chinese language courses at all levels and content courses on business language and culture in China, traditional Chinese poetry, literature and thoughts, Chinese ghost stories and culture, modern Chinese society, Chinese documentary films, perception of China through YouTube and TikTok, and Chinese mythology and animation creation.
Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy
Martcia Wade Teaching Award
Akshaya Jha
Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy
Jha’s research interests lie at the intersection of energy and environmental economics and industrial organization. His research uses a combination of economic modeling and causal inference techniques to quantify the economic and environmental costs and benefits of a wide range of policies impacting wholesale electricity supply. In recent work, he has examined the introduction of financial trading to California’s wholesale electricity market, the phase-out of nuclear power in Germany, the dramatic growth of rooftop solar capacity in Western Australia, and the determinants of electricity blackouts in India.
He received a BS in Economics and Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University, and a PhD in Economics from Stanford University.
Mellon College of Science
The Julius Ashkin Teaching Award
Ken Hovis
Associate Teaching Professor and MCS Assistant Dean for Educational Initiatives
The Richard Moore Education Award
Karen Stump
Teaching Professor and Director of Undergraduate Programs, Chemistry
School of Computer Science
Herbert A. Simon Award for Teaching Excellence
Daniel Anderson
Assistant Teaching Professor
Tepper School of Business
Gerald L. Thompson Teaching Award in the B.S. Business Administration Program
Robert T. Monroe
Teaching Professor of Business Technologies
Dr. Robert T. Monroe is a Teaching Professor of Business Technologies in the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. Amongst other interests, his work explores ways that companies use AI and Machine Learning to do business better, faster, and cheaper. Before joining the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, Dr. Monroe worked in the software industry where he led the design and development of numerous successful software products and software-based services. Dr. Monroe holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in Philosophy and Computer Science from the University of Michigan.
Richard M. Cyert Teaching Award in the B.S. Economics Program
Laurence Ales
Professor of Economics
George Leland Bach Excellence in Teaching Award
Meredith Meyer Grelli
Assistant Professor
Meredith is an Assistant Professor at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University with a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship. She is also an Entrepreneur in Residence at Carnegie Mellon University's Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship.
Meredith Meyer Grelli founded, led, and sold two craft beverage companies, Wigle Whiskey and Threadbare Cider & Mead. She is a two time James Beard Semi-Finalist for Outstanding Wine, Spirits, Beer Professional and was named 100 Women to Watch in the US by the Business Times.
She has also founded, led and transitioned three non-profit organizations. In addition to her innovation and entrepreneurship, Meredith is an author, real estate developer, and seed investor with an unsinkable interest in community and economic development.
Before starting Wigle and Threadbare, Meredith worked in brand management at the Kraft Heinz Company, developed redevelopment plans for environmentally distressed properties at a federally funded non-profit, and studied cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Paris. She received her BS from the University of Chicago and her MBA from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. While she was in graduate school, Meredith co-founded a Pittsburgh urban beekeeping organization and started the nation's first community apiary. She has served a wide variety of non-profit Boards, including as Chair of Visit Pittsburgh. She is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the Carnegie Science Center of Pittsburgh.
Dean’s Award for Outstanding Teaching in the MSBA program
Amr Farahat
Associate Teaching Professor of Business Analytics