Geubelle is Teacher of the Year; Kirts Receives Staff of the Year Award

4/9/2013 Written by Susan Mumm

AE Prof. Philippe Geubelle presents Barb Kirts, Coordinator of Undergraduate Programs, with the inaugural AE Staff of the Year Award.

Written by Written by Susan Mumm

From left, Ryan Palmer, AE student and AIAA member; Joel Houston, AE student and AIAA president; AE Prof. Philippe Geubelle; and Mike Eder, Lockheed Martin Director of Airframe & Installation.
From left, Ryan Palmer, AE student and AIAA member; Joel Houston, AE student and AIAA president; AE Prof. Philippe Geubelle; and Mike Eder, Lockheed Martin Director of Airframe & Installation.
AE Professor Philippe H. Geubelle, a 14-year veteran of the AE Department’s faculty, was chosen as the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Illinois Chapter’s 2009 Teacher of the Year. A brand new recognition, the AE Staff of the Year Award, was presented to Barbara Kirts, Coordinator of Undergraduate Programs.

Geubelle is Associate Head of AE’s Graduate Program, directs the NASA Illinois Space Grant Consortium, and is a Bliss Faculty Scholar. He also is a part-time faculty member in Autonomous Materials Systems at the Beckman Institute.

Geubelle previously had been honored with the AIAA Teacher of the Year Award in 1998, and had received the College of Engineering Everitt Teaching Award in 2000. He has been included 10 times on the List of Teachers Rated as Excellent by Their Students.

Lockheed Martin and Mike Eder, the company’s Director of Airframe & Installation, sponsored the Teacher of the Year Award.

AE Prof. Philippe Geubelle presents Barb Kirts, Coordinator of Undergraduate Programs, with the inaugural AE Staff of the Year Award.
AE Prof. Philippe Geubelle presents Barb Kirts, Coordinator of Undergraduate Programs, with the inaugural AE Staff of the Year Award.
AE Prof. Philippe Geubelle presents Barb Kirts, Coordinator of Undergraduate Programs, with the inaugural AE Staff of the Year Award.

 

Kirts serves as the point of contact for prospective and current undergraduate students, and is the Departmental contact for all AE student societies. She offers assistance to the AE chair of Engineering Open House, and serves on the Department’s Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.

Joining AE’s staff in August 2006, Kirts has been working within various university units the past 32 years. In May 2000 she received the Robert E. Larson Human Development Award from the Urbana campus Counseling Center for her contribution to the enhancement of student development.

Other honors recently announced were the College of Engineering Council’s recognitions of Assistant Prof. Daniel J. Bodony and Prof. Victoria Coverstone for Excellence in Advising. Bodony has been a member of AE’s faculty since 2006, while Coverstone became a faculty member in 1992.

AE faculty recently included on the List of Teachers Rated as Excellent by Their Students have been: Fall 2008, Bodony, Prof. Rodney L. Burton, Prof. Bruce A. Conway, Prof. Gregory Elliott and Prof. Ki D. Lee; Spring 2008, Bodony, Assistant Prof. Timothy W. Bretl, Burton, Conway, Coverstone, Prof. John Lambros, and Assistant Prof. Natasha Neogi.


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This story was published April 9, 2013.