Twelve SPH Faculty Awarded Excellence in Teaching Honors for Fall 2014.

February 11, 2015

Please join us in congratulating the faculty who received an Award for Excellence in Teaching for the Fall 2014 semester. Recipients are selected by the Teaching Awards Selection Subcommittee, which is comprised of faculty from each department. The subcommittee’s selection is based on a review of the overall course evaluations, including instructor ratings and student comments.

The award winners are listed below, together with representative quotes from students about their courses. Kudos to all the award winners.

Recipients of the Fall 2014 Awards

Michael LaValley	BS810	Meta-Analysis for Public Health and Medical Research “Professor LaValley is an excellent instructor and really makes complicated material accessible to everybody in the class.”
Joseph Massaro	BS861	Applied Statistics in Clinical Trials II “Professor Massaro is the best person to teach this course. His knowledge and experience working in biostatistics and clinical trials allows him to teach the course from his own perspective, while also drawing on textbook information. Even though he is very busy, he is always available to talk to students and he responds to emails in a timely manner.”
Kimberly Shea	EP713	Introduction to Epidemiology “Dr. Shea is awesome! She is dedicated to her students and really challenges us to take our knowledge to the next level. I am very happy that I was able to have her as a professor. Students say she is the hardest of the Epi professors, and I love that! I feel like I was challenged to do more, learn more, and think more.”
Matthew Fox	EP854	Advamced Epidemiology “Matt Fox is, hands down, the best teacher I’ve had in a very, very long time… He communicates difficult concepts in a very clear stepwise fashion, and I felt that I left almost every class with a new appreciation of at least one critical point central to understanding medical/epidemiological research. He clearly puts a lot of work into this course, and into the lectures, and it is wonderful to be a beneficiary!”
Veronika Wirtz	IH704	Global Public Health and Medical Care: A Systems Approach “Veronika was transparent about everything she did. She did mid-course evaluations, showed the class the results, and then explained how she was going to change her process to fit the needs of students. Then, she acted on everything she explained. She is always available to talk and has a great rapport with all of the students.”
Taryn Vian	IH733	Financial Management for Health Programs “Taryn has been one of the best instructors in my time at BUSPH. She is incredible at making financial concepts, which can be so dry and boring, fun and exciting. I not only learned a ton in this course, I was re-inspired to pursue managerial work in global health settings.”
Sophie Godley	PH510	Introduction to Public Health “In addition to lots of hard facts I was unaware of before taking the course, it taught me to view the world, politics, and my own major through a new lens. I appreciate its contribution to my well-rounded education, I would advocate for this as a necessary course. For all students. Everywhere.”
Richard Laing	PH740	Pharmaceuticals in Public Health: An Introductory Course “Dr. Laing encouraged the participation and inputs from students all the time in the class which make the class more fun! This is the class that I look forward to going every week in this semester. He also taught us how to write and present in a professional manner, which is very useful.”
Lora Sabin	PH857	Health Economics & Financial Management in Public Health “I was SO impressed that Lora always had our assignments back to us within one week. She spent so much time going through our problem sets and made TONS of detailed, helpful comments. We also spent time in class to make sure we really understood our mistakes. To have an instructor like Lora, who is passionate about economics and public health, who is also passionate about teaching is a rare combination. It was really a privilege to be her student this semester.”
Victoria Parker	PM776	Managerial Skills for Problem Solving “She really cared about her students and got to know us as individuals. Her feedback was always valuable, and the material was extremely interesting and applicable to a career in public health. The professor is open to talking to students outside of class and I got the sense that she really understood each of us.“
David Lagasse	PM780	Managerial Accounting for Healthcare Leaders “Best teacher I had at BUSPH. He cares. He TEACHES on the board and reviews homework and uploads solutions. It’s up to the student to take advantage of the opportunities for learning and developing and applying knowledge gained through the course and textbook into assignments such as cases and the real world.”
Lee Strunin	SB818	Qualitative Research Methods “Professor Strunin had excellent command of the subject matter, and it was always interesting when she tied in the material to her past research experience.”