Several nominators detailed the myriad of ways that Scott Schneider led in the Marianist spirit. In particular, he consistently models characteristics of inclusive leadership such as deeply listening to others, soliciting and elevating voices that are often overlooked, and acting with humility. These leadership qualities are evidenced in his recruitment of diverse students and faculty, reflective decision-making that utilizes subsidiarity, contributions to unifying two departments, guiding that unified department in its vocation to better serve the community, and intercultural mentorship of students. Additionally, Schneider engages in community engaged, experiential learning throughout his career and continues to advance community engaged learning for the common good as the inaugural Ethos Professor for Leadership in Community. When there was a need, Schneider selflessly answered the call to serve and lead the Department of Engineering Management Systems and Technology again, while also serving in his new role in The Ethos Center. His commitment to the Marianist traditions of community and inclusion and to the School of Engineering are greatly appreciated.

Congratulations, Scott Schneider, and thank you very much for your contributions to the School of Engineering!

The nominators for Kim Bigelow detailed numerous amazing ways she continually demonstrates servant leadership. The impact of her servant leadership is strongly evident in her scholarly activities, student mentorship, teaching practice and profession.  Bigelow has served as a mentor to over one hundred undergraduate engineering students helping them to develop into servant leaders. Her nominator wrote, “Dr. Bigelow has created an environment where her students can be completely responsible for bringing their ideas to life and in turn impacting others in doing so.”  For instance, she mentored and empowered two multi-ethnic engineering students in her lab to create a Black Biomechanics Speakers Series, and another student researcher that she mentored created the “Adaptive Toy Event." As a mentor, she developed the capacity of others to be servant leaders, and she has made significant contributions to broadening the participation of multi-ethnic and women students in engineering through her teaching, scholarship, and service. Her commitment to servant leadership in the School of Engineering and the profession are greatly appreciated.

Congratulations, Kim Bigelow, and thank you very much for your contributions to the School of Engineering!

The recipient of the 2022 Vision Award for Excellence in Engagement and Service is the team of Mary Harbach and Rachael Kiplinger. Your nominators highlighted how your team willingly demonstrated servant leadership by navigating a challenging and uncertain engineering workforce during a leadership transition within the Engineering Co-op & Internship Office. During this transition, your team worked creatively to sustain and adapt the co-op program’s students, industry relationships and curriculum. By reading the signs of the times and responding through adaptation and change, you both affirmed the Marianist traditions with your tremendous engagement and service to the co-op program and strengthened this pivotal experiential learning opportunity.  Your commitments to servant leadership in the School of Engineering and the profession are greatly appreciated. 

Congratulations, Mary Harbach and Rachael Kiplinger, and thank you very much for your contributions to the School of Engineering! 

Keigo Hirakawa is the recipient of the 2022 Vision Award for Excellence in Scholarship.  Hirakawa received strong nominations for this award, which highlighted how his scholarly contributions have increased the prominence of UD’s research in vision systems. In particular, the influence and impact of his research on digital camera technology; his publications in top-tier journals within his discipline; best paper awards; several invited keynote presentations at premier international conferences; government and commercial sponsored research; and most important, his quality, direct mentorship of students is to be commended. Additionally, his nominators noted that his innovative research is exceeding the frontiers of what can be accomplished in computational imaging devices, and within the field of computational imaging, his citations exceed 2600. Above all, his stellar scholarship has been accomplished in the Marianist spirit of collaboration and authentic care for students and colleagues.

Congratulations, Keigo Hirakawa, and thank you very much for your contributions to the School of Engineering!

Erick Vasquez is the recipient of the 2022 Vision Award for Excellence in Innovation His nominators included several letters of support from colleagues and students, describing his novel, high impact pedagogical contributions that foster student learning, engagement, development and success. He has demonstrated leadership in his teaching by implementing a variety of best practices such as collaborative learning, active learning, open-ended problem-based learning and community engaged learning. As one nominator wrote, “his innovative pedagogical and scholarship endeavors mirror his values of continuous improvement, service for the common good and true care for others.” His collaborations with the The Ethos Center and the Visioneering Center established reciprocal partnerships with the Rich Earth Institute and the Greene County Environmental Service Division, while augmenting an experiential, hands-on laboratory with innovative entrepreneurially-minded learning. Notably, as Vasquez continues to advance his teaching practice, he also enhances engineering education, inspires student success and vocation, and positively influences the pedagogy of colleagues through his scholarship of teaching and learning and mentorship. He has published several peer-reviewed articles and conference papers on his scholarship of teaching and learning with the Journal of Chemical Engineering Education, ASEE, and the KEEN National Conference. His innovative pedagogy also earned him recognition as a KEEN Community Catalyst from the KEEN Network, and his conference presentations and Engineering Unleashed Card are well regarded. We look forward to how Vasquez will continue to advance engineering education and student success with his recently awarded NSF Research Initiation in Engineering Formation grant with Scott Schneider that will focus on understanding student development of intercultural competence from different pedagogical methods. His commitment to student learning and to the School of Engineering are greatly appreciated.

Congratulations, Erick Vasquez, thank you very much for your contributions to the School of Engineering!