Chancellor Tedd L. Mitchell recognized the system’s top faculty with teaching and research awards.
Six Texas Tech University faculty members were presented Chancellor's Council Distinguished Teaching and Research Awards last week during a ceremony at the McKenzie-Merket Alumni Center.
Throughout the month of January, Texas Tech University System Chancellor Dr. Tedd L. Mitchell recognized 13 faculty members from the TTU System's four institutions – Texas Tech University, the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Angelo State University and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso – as recipients of the 2019 Chancellor's Council Distinguished Teaching and Research Awards. These awards recognize excellence in academics and research, and are the most prestigious honors given to faculty members within the TTU System.
"I'm proud of the world-class innovation and excellence these faculty members exhibit and the unparalleled education and mentorship they provide to our students," Mitchell said. "It is an honor to recognize these individuals and the many ways they power our mission to solve problems and change lives. I am thankful they choose to lend their talents and leadership to the institutions of the Texas Tech University System."
The awards are made possible through philanthropic gifts to the Chancellor's Council, a giving society that supports Mitchell's priorities of impacting student lives through scholarships, recognizing faculty achievement and encouraging excellence across the TTU System. Since the teaching and research awards were established by the council in 2001, 178 faculty have received awards totaling $1.1 million.
Award recipients each receive a $5,000 stipend and an engraved medallion.
"Through their annual gifts, Chancellor's Council members make it possible for us to honor these outstanding faculty and do so much more across our universities," Mitchell said. "These donors are part of the great things happening here, and I appreciate their continued support."
The Texas Tech University recipients are:
• J Chance Brooks, College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources (Teaching Award). Brooks is a professor and associate chair in the Department of Animal & Food Sciences. He currently serves as club adviser for the Texas Tech Meat Science Association, supervises 10 to 20 student internships each year and mentors undergraduate researchers in his laboratory. He has an active research program while serving as investigator or co-investigator on projects resulting in 117 peer-reviewed publications, numerous abstracts and proceedings, nine patents/patent applications and multidisciplinary collaborative research with more than 10 universities. Brooks is a member of the American Meat Science Association and American Society of Animal Science, and has served on 36 committees at the national, regional and university levels.
• Mitzi K. Lauderdale, College of Human Sciences (Teaching Award). Lauderdale serves as the associate academic dean for students in the College of Human Sciences and as an associate professor in the Department of Personal Financial Planning. She works with Student Services in the College of Human Sciences to improve and enhance student recruitment, retention and engagement of undergraduate and graduate students. Lauderdale is a lifelong Red Raider with a bachelor's degree from Texas Tech, a master's degree in personal financial planning and a jurisdoctorate from the Texas Tech School of Law. She is currently a doctoral candidate in personal financial planning at Kansas State University with an anticipated completion this year. Lauderdale has received many teaching honors, including the President's Teaching Award for Excellence, Mortar Board Outstanding Faculty Member Award and Texas Tech Alumni Association New Faculty Award, and is a member of the prestigious Teaching Academy at Texas Tech where she serves on the executive council. She actively conducts research and training in estate planning for special needs families, is a Certified Financial Planner and a member of the Texas Bar Association.
• Andrew Littlefield, College of Arts & Sciences (Research Award). Littlefield received his pre-doctoral training in clinical psychology
at the University of Missouri and completed his clinical internship at the University
of Mississippi Medical Center in 2013. Littlefield has been an assistant professor
of clinical psychology in the Department of Psychological Sciences since 2013. His work focuses on adult psychopathology with a primary focus on substance
use and substance use disorders.
Since 2008, Littlefield has published more than 65 peer-reviewed publications and
multiple book chapters and has been the recipient of funding from the National Institutes
of Health, the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration and the Department
of Defense.
• Tracy Pearl, School of Law (Research Award). Pearl is a nationally recognized scholar on emerging technology and the law. She researches and writes about risk, regulation and tort law in the areas of autonomous vehicles and other new forms of technology. She is currently one of the top two legal scholars in the U.S. in the area of autonomous vehicles, and she has been recognized both nationally and internationally for her balanced, practical and innovative solutions to the novel legal questions and issues posed by these vehicles. Pearl also is the nation's leading legal scholar on liability arising from crowd control and crowd-management issues, and she is the only scholar who has conducted a comprehensive review of the case law in this area and proposed a statutory solution. Pearl's work has appeared in top law reviews and law journals and has been cited widely by both courts and scholars. She has been invited to present her work at conferences at Yale University, Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Sorbonne, among other institutions, and she has consulted with numerous law firms and corporations throughout the country.
• Brie Sherwin, School of Law (Teaching Award). Sherwin is a professor of law and an adjunct professor of public health in environmental health sciences. Her interest in the environment began during her childhood, watching her father farm cotton outside of Lubbock. Her love of natural resources continued as she grew up in Ruidoso, New Mexico. She graduated from the University of New Mexico with a bachelor's degree in biology and then became one of the first two students to graduate from the Texas Tech School of Law's dual-degree program with a jurisdoctorate and master's degree in environmental toxicology. After graduating, she practiced environmental law in Dallas, where she represented blue-collar workers, their families and lower-income communities in toxic tort litigation. Her time as a practicing lawyer has driven her passion for igniting empathy in the classroom by engaging students with real cases rooted in environmental, social and criminal-justice issues. Sherwin began teaching full time in the Texas Tech law school's nationally ranked legal practice program in 2011, and later completed her doctorate in environmental toxicology at The Institute of Environmental & Human Health. In 2016, she received Texas Tech's New Faculty Award and was named the Outstanding Teacher of the Year in the Texas School of Public Health. Since she returned to the School of Law, she has coached numerous advocacy teams to regional and national championships.
• Alan Shinn, J.T. & Margaret Talkington College of Visual & Performing Arts (Teaching Award). Shinn has served as professor of percussion studies at Texas Tech since 1982. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri and a master's degree from Texas Tech. He served as the chair of the winds and percussion area at Texas Tech from 2003 to 2007 and as the School of Music's associate director for undergraduate studies from 2005 to 2015. Shinn was the Texas Tech director of jazz studies from 1985 to 2005 and retired from leading the summer jazz program in 2013 after 30 years of producing the Lubbock Summer Jazz Festival. During his time as director of jazz studies, Shinn produced two critically acclaimed CD recordings. "Seein' the Light...Hearin' the Hub-Tones" featuring Texas Tech's Jazz Ensemble 1, received a Grammy nomination in 1998. Shinn was principal timpanist with the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra from 1982 to 2018 and has been a member of the orchestra for 39 years. He is a former member of the Austin Symphony Orchestra, has served as principal timpanist/percussionist with the Roswell Symphony and has performed a number of times with the chamber orchestras of Santa Fe Pro Musica and 20th Century Unlimited. Shinn was the 2009 recipient of the William Kerns Performing Arts Award for his contribution to the performing arts in Lubbock. He received the Percussive Arts Society's Lifetime Achievement in Education Award in 2012 and became the first recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lubbock Roots Historical Council, in conjunction with the Caprock Jazz Festival, in 2015.
