- University News Archive - Vlogý Little Rock /news-archive/tag/john-talburt/ Vlogý Little Rock Tue, 15 Mar 2022 12:46:04 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 Talburt Recognized as Leading Data Academic Leader /news-archive/2022/03/15/talburt-leading-data-academic-leader/ Tue, 15 Mar 2022 12:46:04 +0000 /news/?p=81106 ... Talburt Recognized as Leading Data Academic Leader]]> CDO (Chief Data Officer) Magazine announced Talburt, professor of information science and Acxiom chair of information quality, as a member of its . “I feel very honored to be named to such a select group of individuals,” Talburt said. “I believe the reason I was named is primarily because Vlogý Little Rock was willing to take a chance in 2006, go against the normal academic trends, and establish a graduate program in information quality in collaboration with MIT. This has given our program great exposure and growing enrollments. I am happy that data has come into parity with programming and is no longer considered a second-class citizen in the world of information technology.” The Leading Data Academic Leaders List 2022 honors great academic leaders, introducing them on a global platform where they share their insights and work, highlighting their significant successes in the previous year, the challenges they faced, and their aspirations and goals for 2022. Talburt has been instrumental in building the Information Quality Graduate Program at Vlogý Little Rock. The program includes the graduate certificate in information quality, the M.S. in information quality, and the Ph.D. in integrated computing with an emphasis in information quality. At Vlogý Little Rock, he also serves as executive director of the Center for Advanced Research in Entity Resolution and Information Quality and coordinator of the Ph.D. program in computer and information sciences. “The information quality, information science, and computer science graduate programs are experiencing dramatic growth,” he said. “I believe the university’s future is in research and graduate studies. We will always have an obligation to serve our undergraduate students, but our future growth will come at the graduate level. We are already recognized as the leading institution in Information Quality graduate education.” U.S. News & World Report has ranked Vlogý Little Rock 19th in its ranking of in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Talburt first joined Vlogý Little Rock in 1983 as a professor in the newly formed Department of Computer Science, which he chaired from 1986-1993. He left the university in 1995 to lead a research and development unit at Acxiom, where he learned about the power and value of data. In 2005, Talburt returned to Vlogý Little Rock in the newly formed Information Science Department as the Acxiom Chair of Information Quality. “I believe the next big area of focus in IT will be around metadata, i.e., data describing other data,” Talburt said. “Well-curated and managed metadata will be the key to data process automation and the ability for organizations to exercise authority and control over their data assets. How can you effectively use your data to create value if you don’t know what data you have and what’s in it? This is the role of metadata, and I think it will be the next big area of research and development. The university is already involved in a major NSF grant investigating ways to automate data curation (processing) and data governance.” You can read the full article on .]]> Vlogý Little Rock Online Graduate Programs Listed Among Nation’s Best by U.S. News and World Report For Third Year in a Row /news-archive/2022/01/25/best-online-programs/ Tue, 25 Jan 2022 15:24:05 +0000 /news/?p=80892 ... Vlogý Little Rock Online Graduate Programs Listed Among Nation’s Best by U.S. News and World Report For Third Year in a Row]]> This ranking assesses online master’s degree programs in computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, information systems, and information technology. Vlogý Little Rock also earned the 19th spot in the 2020 and 2021 lists for U.S. News & World Report. “We are really gratified to make the list for the third year in a row. We know we need to keep improving every year to maintain our position on this very competitive list,” said Dr. Elizabeth Pierce, chair of the Department of Information Science, which houses both programs. “We take very seriously our ongoing efforts with the Vlogý Little Rock Graduate School, our program faculty, students, and alumni to find ways to make the educational experience associated with our programs as attractive, affordable, and high quality as possible.” At Vlogý Little Rock, the U.S. News ranking covers the online Master of Science in information quality and Master of Science in information science programs. Both degrees serve as a stepping stone for other advanced graduate degrees, such as Vlogý Little Rock’s Ph.D. in computer and information science. The online master’s degree in information science is a 33-hour program designed to familiarize individuals with the advanced knowledge, skills, and technologies for working with large amounts of complex data. Students learn how to compete in an industry with an ever-present demand for new innovations in data science and analytics, advanced information systems design and development, and emerging information technologies. “Enrollment in Vlogý Little Rock’s Master of Science in information science has been increasing as recognition of our program grows,” said Dr. Daniel Berleant, professor of information science and coordinator of the graduate program. “We are grateful to the many people here who have been so helpful. This includes staff members as well as other academic departments and their faculty who teach the great courses that many of our students have been taking as electives. We plan to continue building on our success at bringing in new students and gaining recognition for Vlogý Little Rock locally, nationally through the distance education option, and internationally.” The online master’s degree in information quality is a 33-hour program that can be completed in as little as 18 months. The program is designed to prepare students for industry and government careers as well as advanced doctoral studies. Developed with support from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Information Quality Program, the curriculum balances information quality theory with industry best practices using state-of-the-art technology. Dr. John Talburt, professor of information science and advisor of the Master of Science in information quality program, said that Vlogý Little Rock is seeing record enrollment in its information quality degree programs. He credits this success to quality online instruction, career preparation, and student diversity. “Both the information quality and information science programs offer students from diverse educational backgrounds a gateway into successful careers in data science, data analytics, and data management,” Talburt said. “Many entering students with non-technical undergraduate degrees come because they have had on-the-job experience with data and technology and want to be a part of the data revolution. No specific undergraduate degree is required for admission. The program also embraces cultural and gender diversity. While this has been a problem for many computer science and engineering programs, nearly one third of our student body are women and more than half are international students.” For the 2022 rankings edition, U.S. News evaluated schools on five categories, including engagement (25 percent), faculty credentials and training (25 percent), expert opinion (25 percent), service and technologies (12.5 percent), and student excellence (12.5 percent). A program’s score for each ranking indicator is calculated using data that the program reported to U.S. News in a statistical survey.]]> Vlogý Little Rock students honor one-of-a-kind faculty members /news-archive/2021/04/15/we-heart-faculty-winners/ Thu, 15 Apr 2021 15:28:37 +0000 /news/?p=78729 ... Vlogý Little Rock students honor one-of-a-kind faculty members]]> University of Arkansas at Little Rock students are honoring faculty members who have made a positive impact in their lives through the 2021 We Heart Our Faculty Awards.   Overall, six Vlogý Little Rock faculty members were selected by undergraduate, graduate, and law school students. Each of the recipients will receive a certificate and a one-of-a-kind, handmade glass heart created by in the colors of Vlogý Little Rock.  The glass hearts symbolize positive, influential support that makes a real difference in the lives of students. As students enter the university to pursue their education, faculty often play a nurturing role, guiding students through the learning process and working hard to foster an environment that best ensures success.  “There is no doubt that this school year has been extremely challenging for our students, but oftentimes we fail to acknowledge the enormous amount of work that our faculty members put into ensuring that our students excel,” SGA President Landon DeKay said. For the 2021 year, the We Heart Our Faculty Awards awards were expanded to also highlight graduate and law school faculty who were selected by the Vlogý Little Rock Graduate Student Government Association and the William H. Bowen School of Law students.  “These awards originated with our student government leaders, and this initiative clearly demonstrates that our students recognize the positive impact that faculty have on their lives,” said Dr. Ann Bain, executive vice chancellor and provost. “Our faculty make a difference in ensuring our students complete their degree and achieve their career goals, and they do this in a manner that is supportive and inclusive.” The 2021 award recipients include: Vlogý Little Rock Student Government Association
  • David Briscoe, professor of sociology
  • John Talburt, professor of information science and coordinator for the Information Quality Graduate Program
  • Cynthia Johnson, advanced instructor of accounting
Graduate Student Government Association
  • Barbara L’eplattenier, professor of rhetoric and writing
  • John Talburt, professor of information science and coordinator for the Information Quality Graduate Program
  • Jason Kushner, professor of counseling and graduate program coordinator
William H. Bowen School of Law
  • Joshua Silverstein, professor of law
   ]]> Vlogý Little Rock online graduate programs listed among the nation’s best by U.S. News and World Report /news-archive/2021/01/26/best-online-program/ Tue, 26 Jan 2021 22:37:00 +0000 /news/?p=78222 ... Vlogý Little Rock online graduate programs listed among the nation’s best by U.S. News and World Report]]> The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has been recognized as having some of the best online programs in computer information technology in the country. U.S. News & World Report ranked Vlogý Little Rock 19th in its 2021 ranking of “Best Online Graduate Computer Information Technology Programs.”  “Our university continuously encourages innovative academic programming to help students and faculty achieve academic success,” said Dr. David Montague, executive director of online learning and faculty mentoring. “This significant accomplishment in these prestigious academic rankings demonstrates commitment to academic excellence, optimal functionality, accessibility, innovation, universal inclusion, and user-friendly education.” This ranking assesses online master’s degree programs in computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, information systems, and information technology. For Vlogý Little Rock, this ranking includes the online Master of Science in information quality and Master of Science in information science programs. Vlogý Little Rock also ranked 19th in the 2020 U.S. News list. “We are really gratified to make the list again this year. The online degree market has become very competitive,” said Dr. Elizabeth Pierce, chair of the Department of Information Science, which houses both programs. “There are a lot of good schools offering good web-based degrees so we need to keep improving what we offer each year in order to stay a competitor.” The online master’s degree in information quality is a 33-hour program that can be completed in as little as 18 months. The program is designed to prepare students for industry and government careers as well as advanced doctoral studies. Developed with support from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Information Quality Program, the curriculum balances information quality theory with industry best practices using state-of-the-art technology. “The Information Quality Graduate Program was launched in 2006, and it’s the only graduate program in the U.S. devoted to the study of data governance and data quality management issues,” Pierce said. “The program is attracting a lot of attention from the chief data officers community due to the strong synergy between this program’s curriculum and the need for chief data officers to ensure their organization has trusted data that is available when needed.” The online master’s degree in information science is a 33-hour program designed to familiarize individuals with the advanced knowledge, skills, and technologies for working with large amounts of complex data. Students learn how to compete in an industry with an ever-present demand for new innovations in data science and analytics, advanced information systems design and development, and emerging information technologies. Both degrees serve as a stepping stone for other advanced graduate degrees, such as Vlogý Little Rock’s Ph.D. in computer and information science. For the 2021 rankings edition, U.S. News evaluated schools on five categories, including engagement, faculty credentials and training, expert opinion, service and technologies, and student excellence. Dr. Nitin Agarwal, Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy endowed chair and distinguished professor of information science who teaches online courses in the graduate programs, said the professors work hard to meet the challenges of online students.  “Online students face a variety of challenges,” Agarwal said. “Aside from technological challenges, online students  miss peer-experience, engagement and participation during asynchronous classes, instant access to instructors and on-campus resources. We recognize these limitations of online education and make a concerted effort to improve students’ learning experience.”   Pierce said that the success of the online programs is driven by several factors, including the use of innovative online technologies to deliver a live classroom webcast from video classrooms in the Donaghey College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, skilled instructors, and support from Vlogý Little Rock. “In our programs, we have worked hard to improve the delivery of the online learning experience,” Pierce said. “We encourage students as much as possible to take their classes synchronously online to get as much interactive engagement with their instructors as if they were physically on campus. In addition though, we do offer students the flexibility to view the recorded sessions anytime their schedules do not permit them to join the live session at the given time. The other part of the equation is the quality of the program’s instructors and course content. In addition to our regular graduate faculty, we recruit highly qualified individuals from industry to teach specialized content so that our students can get the best combination of real world experiences coupled with sound academic principles.” Two of the information science professors who teach for the graduate programs, Dr. John Talburt and Dr. Richard Wang, were recently named to Chief Data Officer Magazine’s 2021 . ]]> Vlogý Little Rock ranked among colleges with best online computer IT programs /news-archive/2019/01/15/ua-little-rock-best-online-computer-it-programs/ Tue, 15 Jan 2019 15:06:51 +0000 /news/?p=73108 ... Vlogý Little Rock ranked among colleges with best online computer IT programs]]> The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has once again been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as having some of the in the country.  Schools are ranked according to their performance across a set of widely accepted indicators of excellence, with Vlogý Little Rock being selected as 15th on the list, up from 27th in 2018. This ranking assesses online master’s degrees in computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, information systems, and information technology. For Vlogý Little Rock, this consists of the Master of Science in Information Science and the Master of Science in Information Quality online degree programs. “As we provide a mix of delivery modes to meet student needs, our online offerings grow,” said Dr. Lawrence Whitman, chair of the Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology. “Dr. Elizabeth Pierce, chair of the Information Science Department, has done an excellent job of implementing technology in a manner that is most effective for student learning. This ranking is the fruit of her and many others’ efforts to implement state-of-the-art technology in student learning.” Both programs offer night courses that are convenient for working professionals. All courses in the online program are tied to a live class, so online students get much of the same educational experience as on-campus students. “The students really like our format, which is different from many schools,” said Dr. John Talburt, coordinator of the information quality graduate programs. “We don’t use the old correspondence-style course. Every online class is anchored to an on-campus class. All students get their assignments and take their exams at the same time. Online students can participate during a live class or watch the recorded lectures when it is convenient for them.” The Master of Science in Information Science is a 33-credit-hour program designed to familiarize individuals with the advanced knowledge, skills, and technologies for working with large amounts of complex data. This degree also serves as a stepping stone toward pursuing other graduate degrees, such as the Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science. The online master’s program began in 2007 and currently has 17 students with 23 more students in the doctoral program. Graduates often work in data quality management and in data governance. The information science discipline is expanding rapidly thanks to an ever-present demand for new innovations in information retrieval, storage, processing, and analysis tools and techniques. “There is a huge emphasis on data quality, data governance, data science and how to get more value out of information. We were one of the first universities to offer graduate degrees in information quality,” Talburt said. “A lot of our online students are already working professionals, so having an online program in their area is very attractive.” The Master of Science in Information Quality is a career-oriented program focusing on practice, skills, and theory. The 33-hour program, which began in 2017 and can be completed in 18 months, is designed to prepare students for careers in industry and government as well as advanced graduate studies. The curriculum balances information quality theory with industry best practices using state-of-the-art tools and technology. The course content has been developed with the support of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Information Quality Program and with additional help from leading practitioners and researchers within the information quality community. “Our intention is for the program to be challenging to people who do have a computing background, while being an option for more mature students who want to get into the computing field without having an undergraduate computing degree,” said Dr. Daniel Berleant, professor of information science and advisor for the graduate program. “Graduates are prepared for new jobs in data analysis and data manipulation, or to advance in their present jobs. The program electives help tailor the student to the type of position they want to get.” For the 2019 rankings edition, U.S. News evaluated schools on five general categories, including engagement, faculty credentials and training, expert opinion, services and technologies, and student excellence.]]> Vlogý Little Rock grad researches validity of patient data found on social networks /news-archive/2018/12/12/kim-tran-social-networks-ipf/ Wed, 12 Dec 2018 15:35:15 +0000 /news/?p=72926 ... Vlogý Little Rock grad researches validity of patient data found on social networks]]> A University of Arkansas at Little Rock student who is graduating on Dec. 15 is making it easier for medical researchers to validate patient data found on social networks that can be used to make important decisions about what medical products are advanced for future development. When Kim Tran of Little Rock was working at Arkansas Capital Corporation a decade ago, she noted that there was a statewide discussion on the critical importance of computer and information technology. “I was working with business and government leaders throughout Arkansas who were talking about technology and how important it was to have access to the infrastructure in order to enable that technology,” she said. “At the time, people were also starting to talk about this thing called big data. With this in mind, I wanted to learn more. Vlogý Little Rock had also just partnered with MIT to develop a curriculum that was focused on the science of data and that is what brought me to Vlogý Little Rock.” Tran, who began the Ph.D. program in computer and information science in 2010 as a part-time student who worked full time, said one of the most challenging aspects of the process was selecting a topic for her dissertation, citing the more than 1,200 articles she reviewed before choosing a topic. She’s grateful for her professors who served as mentors during her time at Vlogý Little Rock. “Dr. Rolf Wigand was always pushing the boundary for me,” she said. “Every time I felt good about where I was at, he would challenge me to look around the next corner. Ph.D. students need this kind of feedback in order to strengthen the quality of their research. Dr. John Talburt and Dr. Meredith Zozus especially helped me contextualize my research. I also developed lifetime friendships with many professors at the university. They were an exceptionally supportive group, and I was lucky to have that.” Having a support structure during her doctoral endeavors was something she especially owes to her dissertation advisor, Dr. Nitin Agarwal, Maulden-Entergy Endowed Chair and distinguished professor in the Department of Information Science and director of the Collaboratorium of Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (). “The great thing about the Ph.D. process is that you have an advisor who will guide you through the process and help open doors so that you can grow and develop. Dr. Agarwal guided me through the process,” she said. Tran’s research brings together the fields of machine learning and natural language processing, psychometrics, and social networks, all of which are applied to Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), a lung disease which results in scarring (fibrosis) of the lungs for unknown reasons. An estimated five million patients worldwide and 150,000 patients in the United States are affected by this disease. “Kim’s research bridges the disciplines of statistics, health sciences, information sciences, and social networks by developing a computational framework to assess social media’s validity in capturing patient reported outcomes from Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis patients,” Agarwal said. “Her research has far-reaching implications to the health domain by facilitating exploratory efforts in the medical product development process.” Since 2009, regulatory reviewers have been looking at ways to incorporate patient input into its drug selection process, in order to bring drugs to the market sooner, Tran said. In 2015, a discussion held between regulatory reviewers, pharmaceutical companies, and a patient group generated consensus on the potential of social networks in supporting the validity of patient outcomes identified for medical product development and her dissertation creates a scalable framework from which the validity of social networks can be determined. “Healthcare is very unique domain since research in this area affects the lives of patients,” she said. “So any data you are deriving from any source will require a high level of scrutinization. Social networks are one possible platform that can be used as a source to develop patient-reported outcomes. While the ideal source of feedback is obtained directly from the patient, the way in which this information is gathered is highly variant in scope and in quality. The FDA, for example, still collects patient input through town halls. In the search for more efficient methods of gathering patient understanding, social networks serve as a unique source of observational data.” In order to study whether the data is valid, she uses advanced probabilistic methods to analyze and evaluate Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis messages from Twitter for the last 10 years across 34 different languages from around the world. Tran was drawn to study Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis after attending an international research conference where she spoke with patients and about this little known disease. “IPF is not as well known or studied as breast cancer,” she said. “When something is idiopathic, you don’t know the origin. The one thing you do know is that your disease is fatal and that it will result in markedly reduced lung capacity over time. I met with and spoke at length with many patients who were affected by this disease at an international conference. It was eye opening and also touching how driven and motivated these patients were to learn about IPF. They were there because they didn’t want to just be a patient, they wanted to be a part of finding a cure. That gave me the drive to learn more about the field and to help advance the understanding of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.” As part of her dissertation, Tran has collaborate with a researchers across the country who are planning to set up additional studies based on this research. “I have been fortunate to meet researchers from other institutions that I have been working with as well as others that I will begin to work with,” she said. “This is a group which will bring diverse perspectives and includes researchers from VlogýMS, Yale, Georgetown, Northeastern, and Tulane University. There is much opportunity to extend this research to fully evaluate the validity of social networks, and I am really looking forward to it.” In the end, Tran is grateful for the opportunities that earning a Ph.D. brought her. “The Ph.D. process is an excellent development opportunity as long as you are able to commit to the process,” Tran said. “Through this process, you learn how to learn. I had an opportunity to work across a variety of fields that are all on the cutting edge of things that matter in today’s business environment and to make a novel contribution to the field.”]]> Indian students complete summer research program at Vlogý Little Rock /news-archive/2017/10/10/indian-students-summer-research/ Tue, 10 Oct 2017 13:15:39 +0000 /news/?p=68079 ... Indian students complete summer research program at Vlogý Little Rock]]> A group of nine students from India completed internships in cutting-edge research areas at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock this summer.  Dr. Seshandri Mohan, professor of systems engineering, initiated the international exchange program between Vlogý Little Rock and Vishwaniketan, an institution affiliated with the in India. Participants included Rahul Sharma, Yash Dutt Sharma, Shubham Gupta, Tanya Gupta, Yanshshree Anil Patil, Mohan Patle, Varad Anil Deshpande, Vatsal Paresh Gala, and Rajeev Kishore Sugandhi. The partnership brought Vishwaniketan students who are pursuing undergraduate degrees in engineering, computer science, information technology, and mechanical engineering to Little Rock for a six-week research internship from June 19 to July 29. Upon completion of the internships, the students returned to their home universities to complete their degrees.  Their completion of the international research internship will give them an advantage on their resumes. Vlogý Little Rock has previously conducted similar exchange programs with Pondicherry University, SRM University, and Don Boscoe University, all in India. Mohan said many of the students who participated in these internships returned to Vlogý Little Rock to pursue a graduate degree. “The students say they are enriched by this experience beyond what they expected out of it,” Mohan said. “They understand how to take responsibility and pursue research internships. Hopefully, some of them will return to Vlogý Little Rock.” The students conducted research and experiments in four areas: robotics mentored by Dr. Andrew Wright, associate professor of systems engineering, and graduate assistant Trigun Maroo; entity resolution mentored by Dr. John Talburt, professor of information science and Acxiom Chair of Information Quality, and graduate assistant Yumeng Ye; machine learning mentored by Dr. Mariofanna Milanova, professor of computer science; and Internet of Things mentored by Mohan and graduate assistant Hadi Salman. In the Internet of Things project, interns Mohan Patle, Yashshree Anil Patil, and Shubam Gupta built devices that can be used in smart homes. According to Mohan, Internet of Things refers to devices that are connected to the Internet. Currently, the world contains more than 12 billion internet-connected devices, a number which could increase to 50 billion by 2020. Students programmed smart sensors to perform a variety of smart home functions. They programmed pressure sensors that could be used to build a smart refrigerator, range sensors that can detect motion to know when to activate lights, and a rain sensor that could be used to control shutters. As part of the machine learning project, interns Vatsal Gala and Varad Deshpande helped build a system that can predict the sentiments for commercial products by analyzing images and reviews posted on an ecommerce website. “Thousands of websites are selling millions of products online showing their images and stating the description of the product,” Milanova said. “The opinion mining is done by extracting various features from text and images that depict various sentiments. The most important part of the project was to train the machine on this set of extracted features and calculated data so that the machine can predict the values of sentiment for a new product (entity).” In the entity and identity resolution project, interns Tanya Gupta and Rahul Sharma used an open source software package called OYSTER that was developed at Vlogý Little Rock to determine when records in an information system are about the same entity or different entity. Entities can be students, patients, customers, products, and locations. Entity and identity resolution is especially important in health care so patients can receive the proper treatment. “If you don’t bring together all of a patient’s records of diagnoses, tests, and previous treatments, it could easily lead the patient’s healthcare providers to make the wrong treatment decisions,” said Talburt, who mentored the interns. “Conversely, mixing the information together from two different patients could have many adverse consequences as well.” Gupta and Sharma took to OYSTER so well that they are considering using OYSTER to start a small business in India to help companies with entity resolution and data integration problems. In the upper right photo, nine college students from India completed six-week internships in cutting-edge research areas at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock this summer. The students also visited Gov. Asa Hutchinson at the Arkansas Governor’s Manson in Little Rock. Pictured, from left to right, are Yash Dutt Sharma, Yashshree Anil Patil, Tanya Gupta, Rajeev Sugandhi, Shubham Gupta, Sachin Sharma, Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Seshadri Mohan, Rahul More, Rahul Sharma, Vatsal Gala, Mohan Patle, and Varad Anil Deshpande.]]> Vlogý Little Rock announces college-level Faculty Excellence Award winners /news-archive/2017/03/28/ua-little-rock-faculty-excellence-award-winners/ Tue, 28 Mar 2017 14:31:58 +0000 /news/?p=66672 ... Vlogý Little Rock announces college-level Faculty Excellence Award winners]]> “Faculty excellence winners underscore Vlogý Little Rock’s commitment to quality instruction, innovative research, and service to the community. Our faculty’s dedication to these fundamental principles continue to be the bedrock of our institution,” said Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Dr. Deborah Baldwin. A panel of external judges will review the achievements of the college-level winners and select the university-wide winners in the categories of teaching, research, and public service. The three university-wide winners, who will each receive a cash prize of $5,000, will be announced during the Faculty Excellence Awards ceremony at 5:30 p.m. April 13 in the Engineering and Information Technology Building Auditorium on the Vlogý Little Rock campus. A reception will follow in the Engineering and Information Technology Building lobby. Since 1989, when the first award was given, the event has provided a way to recognize the great work of Vlogý Little Rock faculty and is made possible through the valued contributions of the Office of the Chancellor, the Office of the Provost, and the Vlogý Little Rock Chancellor’s Circle.  The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Vlogý Little Rock Office of the Provost at 501.569.3204. The following is a list of college-level winners:

 Public Service

  • Allison Holland, director of the University Writing Center and senior instructor of rhetoric and writing, College of Social Sciences and Communications
  • Cynthia Johnson, advanced instructor of accounting, College of Business
  • Laura Barrio-Vilar, assistant professor of English, College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences
  • Michael DeAngelis, assistant professor of earth sciences, George W. Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology
  • Suzanne Penn, associate professor of clinical law, William H. Bowen School of Law

Research/Creative Endeavors

  • Mengjun Xie, associate professor of computer science, George W. Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology
  • Michael Flannery, professor of law, William H. Bowen School of Law
  • Tansel Karabacak, associate professor of physics and astronomy, College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences

Teaching

  • J. Lyn Entrikin, professor of law, William H. Bowen School of Law
  • John Talburt, professor of information science and Acxiom Chair of Information Quality, George W. Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology
  • Kathryn King, assistant professor of anthropology, College of Communication and Social Sciences
  • Linda Holzer, professor of music, College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences
  • Linda Stauffer, associate professor of interpreter education and program coordinator of the Interpreter Education Program, College of Education and Health Professions
  • Otmar Varela, associate professor of management, College of Business
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