Rutgers logo
School of Environmental and Biological Sciences
Rutgers logo
School of Environmental and Biological Sciences

2025 SEBS/NJAES Excellence Awards

Our strengths as a school and experiment station are made possible through the dedication and impactful work of our faculty and staff. The Excellence Award program is our opportunity to acknowledge individuals and teams who have gone above and beyond an already high bar of expectation. These signature awards meet carefully-considered criteria, including creativity, original work and ideas, innovation, effectiveness, integrity, leadership, impact, community engagement, and excellence.

Congratulations to our 2025 Excellence Winners!

Ann Gould, Yanhong Jin & Laura Lawson

Teaching Excellence Award

Yanhong Jin

Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics

Ann Gould, Holly Nelson & Laura Lawson

Sustained Career Teaching Excellence Award

Holly Nelson

Department of Landscape Architecture

Dana Price & Dina Fonseca

Early Career Research Excellence Award

Dana Price

Department of Entomology

Don Kobayashi & Eric Lam

Sustained Research Excellence Award

Eric Lam

Department of Plant Biology

Troy Roepke, Karla Esquilin-Lebron, Ines Rauschenbach & Laura Lawson

Faculty DEI Excellence Award

Peer Mentoring in Microbiology

Team Members: Karla Esquilin-Lebron, Ines Rauschenbach

Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology

Brian Schilling, Matt Newman, Marissa Staffen, Rodrigo Sanchez Hernandez, Brianna Boyd, Jennie Thomas, Kendrin Dyitt & Kathleen Howell

Outreach and Community Engagement Excellence Award

Rutgers 4-H Computer Science Pathways/Clovers CODE program

Team Members: Brianna Boyd, Kendrin Dyitt, Rodrigo Sanchez Hernandez, Marissa Staffen, Jennie Thomas

Megan Francis, Travis Miles & Laura Lawson

International Excellence Award – Early Career

Travis Miles

Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences

Rachel Shwom & Pam McElwee

International Excellence Award – Sustained Career

Pam McElwee

Department of Human Ecology

Laura Lawson with the GEAR UP at SEBS: A STEM Collaborative team.

Team Excellence Award

GEAR UP at SEBS: A STEM Collaborative

Team Members: Anastasia Ioshpa, Aparna Zama, Ben Lintner, Brian Canares, Chitra Ponnusamy, Daniel Jacobs, Don Schaffner, Emma-Kate Feeney, Felicia McCloskey, Harna Patel, Hugh Roarty, Janice McDonnell, Jeffra Schaefer, Joseph Goffreda, Kelly Vuong, Mary Nucci, Megan Francis, Melissa Keresztes, Mitaali Taskar, Nrupali Patel, Oi Yin Lo, Patty Oehmke, Paul Takhistov, Sage Lichtenwalner, Sonia Arora, Steven Decker, Youn-Kyung Kim

Mazen Shehat, Brian Schilling, Elaine Griffin & Josh Kohut

Staff Excellence Award

Elaine Griffin

SEBS and NJAES Office of Grants Facilitation

Julie Traxler & Sharice Richardson

Staff DEI Excellence Award

Sharice Richardson

SEBS Office of Academic Programs