Teaching Award Winners Honored at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The University of Alabama National Alumni Association has announced the 2008 recipients of the University’s highest honor for excellence in teaching – the Outstanding Commitment to Teaching Awards.

This year’s four recipients are Dr. Christopher S. Brazel, associate professor in the College of Engineering, Dr. Ian W. Brown, professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. David P. Hale, professor in the College of Commerce and Business Administration, and Susan Randall, professor in the School of Law.

The 2008 OCTA recipients were recognized today by UA President Robert E. Witt at the fall faculty/staff meeting in the Bryant Conference Center. A presentation of awards is also held at NorthRiver Yacht Club with the National Alumni Association.

Established in 1976, OCTA recognizes dedication to the teaching profession and the positive impact outstanding teachers have on their students.

The National Alumni Association, which gives the annual OCTA awards, is made up of more than 29,000 active alumni and friends of the University organized into more than 100 local chapters nationwide. The association stimulates interest in and supports the betterment of the University and awards more than $2 million per year in academic scholarships.

The 2008 OCTA winners are:

Dr. Christopher S. Brazel joined the UA College of Engineering in 1999 in the department of chemical and biological engineering where he directs the honors program and coordinates honors forum courses that emphasize emerging technologies.

His research focuses on materials for pharmaceutical and biomedical applications, including magnetic nanoparticles for improved cancer treatment that combines hyperthermia with localized chemotherapy. He has served as an adviser for more than 40 undergraduate students, authored more than 70 research papers, edited a book and given invited talks at national and international conferences.

Before coming to UA, Brazel was a research engineer in the microencapsulation division at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. During graduate school, he participated in a NATO grant to work at the Topchiev Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, and at the University of Parma, Italy. Brazel is currently on sabbatical (funded partly by the Fulbright Commission) in the United Kingdom. He is working on nanostructured materials for cancer therapy and cystic fibrosis treatment at Keele University’s Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine. He is planning a study abroad program for UA engineering students to visit Britain in summer 2009.

He is a member the American Institute for Chemical Engineers, the Biomedical Engineering Society, the American Chemical Society and the American Society for Engineering Education. His research is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, the Petroleum Research Fund and industry.

Dr. Ian W. Brown joined the UA faculty in 1991 as an associate professor of anthropology and was named professor in 1993. In addition to his teaching role at the University, Brown serves as curator for Alabama Museum of Natural History Gulf Coast Archaeology.

At UA, Brown started the Gulf Coast Survey, an archaeological program of the Alabama Museum of Natural History with offices and a lab housed in Mary Harmon Bryant Hall on campus. Brown and his students are actively engaged in archaeological research in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, excavating both prehistoric and historic sites.

His research interests include archaeological material culture, Southeastern U.S. archaeology, Native American ethnohistory, the role of salt in world prehistory and history, historical archaeology, historic cemeteries, gravestone studies and museology.

Brown has written or edited nine books/monographs and authored 28 peer-reviewed articles and 30 chapters in edited volumes. He has also presented 73 papers at professional meetings. Since he has been at UA, Brown has advised 30 graduate students who wrote 26 theses and five doctoral dissertations.

Before coming to UA, he was a lecturer in anthropology at Harvard University for a decade, where he also served as associate curator of the Peabody Museum and then assistant director. At Harvard, Brown created the museum studies program and installed a permanent exhibition in the Peabody Museum’s Hall of the North American Indian. Brown’s permanent exhibition, “Change and Continuity in Native American Lifeways,” now in its 18th year, is the largest exhibition of its kind in New England and has played an important role in the public education mission of the university.

Dr. David P. Hale joined the UA Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration in 1995 after serving as a faculty member at Texas Tech University. Since that time he has served as the director of Management Information Systems programs to help propel the UA-MIS program into national prominence through experiential learning courses and student-centered research projects.

Hale has developed and taught undergraduate and graduate courses and serves as the adviser to the student MIS society. The program’s graduates go on to successfully compete in the national marketplace.

He has an active sponsored research and service program, and he has been principal investigator on projects totaling more than $8 million from the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the state of Alabama and several private sector organizations. These projects have resulted in more than 50 scholarly and professional publications in journals and conference proceedings.

Hale currently directs UA’s Aging Infrastructure Systems Center of Excellence, which leverages his research in asset management systems and complex multi-criteria decision processing. Each year, more than 20 students are employed by Hale in his labs working on these projects.

In these projects, students are actively engaged in developing their skill base and giving back to society by delivering entrepreneurial training to newly displaced workers, facilitating the development of the civil works asset management framework for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, expanding the feasible solution space for sustainable Gulf Coast fisheries infrastructure, and bringing the work of rural Black Belt artisans to the world through an e-marketplace.

Susan Randall received her bachelor’s degree with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. She joined the faculty in the UA School of Law in 1992 and was promoted to professor in 1999. Before joining the faculty, she practiced law in New York City at the firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and served on the faculty of Brooklyn Law School.

Randall teaches Torts (a required first-year law school course), Products Liability, Insurance and a seminar in Advanced Torts in the upper level. Her Advanced Torts seminar focuses on topics including tort reform, damages, sovereign immunity and medical malpractice. She has also taught in the UA Honors Program and in the College of Commerce and Business Administration.

She regularly supervises student research for the Alabama Law Review and on independent projects, several of which have been published in legal journals. She has been active in developing and participating in academic support initiatives at the Law School and has served as an adviser to several law student organizations.

A recipient of the Student Bar Association Outstanding Faculty Member Award and recognized as a Dean’s Scholar by the provost, she participates in the Law School’s faculty mentoring initiative, serving as a faculty mentor to several junior faculty members. She was selected by the class of 2008 to serve as a member of the hooding team at graduation.

Randall is an active member of the Insurance Section of the American Association of Law Schools, having served in various leadership capacities over the last decade. She has published in numerous legal journals on insurance regulation, the use of arbitration in insurance disputes, and issues relating to insurance defense.

She has worked with the American Bar Association to advise Congress on various regulatory issues such as the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act and proposals for federalization of insurance regulation, including optional federal charters.