Five professors have been named recipients of this year's UNLV Foundation Distinguished Teaching Awards.
The professors are Donald Bell of food and beverage management, Pradip Bhowmik of chemistry, Colin Loader of history, Peggy Perkins of educational psychology, and Roberta Williams of biology.
The awards, which will be presented to the winners during a special ceremony April 22 at 3:30 p.m., carry a stipend of $5,000 each.
Bell, a professor of food and beverage, has been at UNLV since 1981. He teaches a variety of courses in food and beverage management and is the author of three books and numerous scholarly articles on the topic. During his tenure, he has twice received the Hotel College Teacher of the Year Award and was named the Claudine Williams Distinguished Professor in 1994.
Bhowmik, a member of the UNLV faculty since 1998, is an assistant professor of chemistry. He was twice awarded the Professor of the Year Award from the Association of Pre-Health Professionals and was named the UNLV College of Sciences Distinguished Teacher in 2003. Prior to coming to Las Vegas, Bhowmik taught at several universities, including Kent State University and the University of Detroit, as well as several colleges and high schools in Bangladesh. He was also a visiting scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Loader is a professor of history and has been a member of the UNLV faculty for 18 years. He teaches a variety of courses in European history at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Loader is the author of more than a dozen articles on topics ranging from Sherlock Holmes to German sociology and two books on the German social theorist Karl Mannheim. He was awarded the Morris Award for Research and Creative Activity in 1987 and the UNLV Alumni Association Student Focused Award in 2001.
An associate professor of educational psychology, Perkins has been a faculty member since 1989 and is a past recipient of the College of Education's Lilly Fong Distinguished Professor Award. Prior to coming to UNLV, she taught at Saint Leo College in Florida and State University of New York, Fredonia, and served as an instructional design consultant for the Sarasota County School Board. Her scholarly writings have appeared in a variety of professional journals and academic textbooks.
Williams has been an assistant professor of biology at UNLV since 1990. She currently teaches courses in human biology, human genetics, environmental science, and scientific methods. She has been the recipient of various awards, including the College of Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award, College of Sciences Distinguished Service Award, Extended Education's Faculty Excellence Award, and the Board of Regents Outstanding Graduate Advisor Award. She is the author of a popular academic textbook, "Human Biology, a Laboratory Manual," which is now on its fifth edition.
