Carver College of Medicine faculty earn awards for teaching, service
Four University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine faculty members have earned awards for their outstanding work in teaching and service.
The Carver College of Medicine Faculty Awards, presented annually and coordinated by the college’s Office of Faculty Affairs and Development, recognize faculty who have made exceptional contributions impacting their students, colleagues, and patients. Award recipients typically are honored at a banquet each spring; the 2021 event was canceled due to COVID-19.
This year’s award recipients:
Ernest O. Theilen Clinical Teaching and Service Award
Christopher Goerdt, MD, MPH, clinical professor of internal medicine
The Theilen Award is presented to a faculty member who emulates the qualities recognized in Ernest O. Theilen, MD, a former faculty member in the Department of Internal Medicine known for his commitment to patients and the medical profession.
Goerdt is lauded by Department of Internal Medicine colleagues as an outstanding mentor and role model to colleagues, medical students, and resident and fellow physicians. He is a recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the College of Medicine’s Collegiate Teaching Award, and he is a skilled clinician who demonstrates commitment to his patients and the development of future physicians. He has served on numerous collegiate committees, and he has led by example through his involvement with the Iowa City Free Medical Clinic, Iowa Special Olympics, and the student-led Mobile Clinic.
J.P. Long Teaching Award in the Basic Sciences
Tim Yahr, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology
This award honors John P. Long, PhD, a former faculty member and chair of the Department of Pharmacology, and is given to an individual who exemplifies teaching that uniquely enhances student learning through new methods, style, or spectrum of material, and enhances student learning and intellectual development.
Yahr serves as lab instructor for the course Mechanisms of Health and Disease, and he is course director of Bacteria and Human Disease. He also is director of graduate studies in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. Yahr serves as a member of the department’s undergraduate research award committee, and he leads a weekly bacterial physiology group meeting—a forum for undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, research scientists, and faculty in the department.
Collegiate Teaching Award
Richard J. Roller, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology
The Collegiate Teaching Award is given to faculty members who demonstrate significant and meritorious achievement in teaching and who have contributed to students’ development through mentoring, advising, and sponsoring of creative and/or scholarly achievements.
Roller has served as director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology since 1998 and continues to be a role model for students throughout the college and university. Over the past three years, he has taught more than a dozen courses for undergraduate, graduate, medical, and health professions students in both classroom and laboratory settings. His enthusiastic approach to teaching is praised by learners and peers, with numerous student evaluations noting how Roller’s teaching enhanced their ability to learn microbiology basic knowledge and virology laboratory skills.
Faculty Service Award
David Weiss, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology
The Faculty Service Award acknowledges a faculty member who has made a significant and sustained contribution to the college in the area of service through extensive committee work, contributions to ad hoc projects, or other leadership roles that benefit the institution.
Weiss has served as the contact director of the National Science Foundation-funded Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates in Microbiology at the UI since 2005. Through his leadership and dedication to the program, Weiss has made an impactful influence on recruiting underrepresented minority graduate students and training the next generation of scientists. Weiss also maintains a federally funded research program focused on bacterial cell division. He serves as director of several courses and advisor for undergraduate students majoring in microbiology, and he remains active on PhD thesis committees, collegiate committees and working groups, and editorial boards of national academic journals.