Each year, the University of Washington’s Awards of Excellence highlight alumni, faculty, staff, retirees and students who contribute to the richness and diversity of the University community. This year, the University has recognized the outstanding contributions of four members of the College of the Environment: Mikelle Nuwer, Kristin Privitera-Johnson, Burlyn Birkemeier and Joanna Long. The winners will be honored from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. on June 9 at the Meany Hall for the Performing Arts.
Please join us in congratulating our 2022 Awards of Excellence recipients, and thanking them for their amazing work!
Distinguished Teaching Award
Congratulations to UW Oceanography Associate Teaching Professor Mikelle Nuwer, recipient of a 2022 Distinguished Teaching Award. Award recipients are chosen based on a variety of criteria, including mastery of the subject matter, enthusiasm and innovation in teaching and learning process, ability to engage students both within and outside the classroom, ability to inspire independent and original thinking in students and to stimulate students to do creative work, and innovations in course and curriculum design.
Mikelle has a deep love for her teaching subject — and it shows. Each year, she introduces more than 600 students to marine science, including Pacific Northwest geologic history, the physics and chemistry of coastal waters, and marine food webs and ecology. Her students say that she challenges them while creating a space where questions are welcome, support is available, science is impactful and students can see ways to make a difference. Mikelle developed an evidence-based teaching course for oceanography teaching assistants, coalescing a community of dedicated graduate students with this effort. She chairs her school’s diversity, equity and inclusion committee, and with her graduate students, she has dug deep into inclusive pedagogy that incorporates English learning access, diverse representation in course materials and universal design.
Excellence in Teaching Award
Congratulations to UW Aquatic and Fishery Sciences Doctoral Candidate Kristin Privitera-Johnson, recipient of a 2022 Excellence in Teaching Award. The award recognizes stellar teaching by graduate students. The recipients are honored for demonstrating extraordinary teaching ability as graduate instructors or as graduate teaching assistants.
In the College, Kristin is respected as equal parts “killer programmer” and “passionate instructor.” She teaches introduction to R programming and advanced R programming courses for natural scientists, and recently developed the course Dark Side of Hot Topics: The Settler-Colonial and White Supremacist History of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, which colleagues describe as “transformative.” Her deliberate, structured curriculum and course design have created a truly inclusive space where students are free to try, fail and try again. “She is genuine and honest,” a colleague wrote, “and always willing to share her own learning challenges and how she overcame them. Her approach is highly effective and is helping pave the way for our faculty to develop their own adaptive and self-reflective approaches to teaching.”
Together We Will Awards
This year, two staff members were recognized for their contributions to the College and University; congratulations to Burlyn Birkemeier and Joanna Long. The Together We Will Awards celebrate outstanding staff contributions made during our community’s recent extraordinary challenges.
Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean and Ecosystem Studies (CICOES) Research Scientist Burlyn Birkemeier’s contributions as a member of the Health and Safety Committee and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Outreach Subcommittee, and as a supervisor, had a great impact on the CICOES community and team. As a member of the DEI subcommittee, she played an integral role in initiatives to help scientists engage with people in the Seattle area from groups that have been underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In her role as a marine mammal researcher, Burlyn’s performance has remained outstanding despite the challenging year, during which she cheerfully took on new responsibilities even as she continued conducting cutting-edge research.
UW Botanic Gardens Gardner Joanna Long is known as reliable and trustworthy and helps improve her colleagues’ working conditions. She supports her coworkers in a range of ways, from creating development strategies to increasing the life and productivity of equipment to suggesting cards for injured colleagues and consistently advocating for diversity in the hiring process. At the outset of the pandemic, she searched for ways to enable her coworkers to safely enjoy the warmth indoors during the winter months, and her championing of safe protocols led to important changes in the return-to-campus plan.
