Kent Leach and Kyriacos Athanasiou Receive College of Engineering’s Faculty Awards

Kent Leach has received the 2014 Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award from the College of Engineering. He regularly scores 4.5/5.0 and above for instructor excellence, even in classes known to be unpopular: the highest level of student satisfaction for any of the department’s core courses. He even achieved a perfect 5.0/5.0 for his undergraduate elective course in tissue engineering: a first for the BME department. He also earns high marks for innovative instruction: Video projects assigned to his students were so successful that they later were employed as community outreach, to excite elementary school children about careers in science and engineering.

Kyriacos Athanasiou has received the 2014 Outstanding Senior Faculty Award. During the past several decades, Dr. Athanasiou has worked to develop superior treatment alternatives for patients who suffer from various forms of cartilage damage or deterioration. Four U.S. companies have been founded on discoveries from within his group: companies that now produce widely used medical products. He recently received the 2013/14 Lissner Medal from the Bioengineering Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, for outstanding achievements in his field.

The an awards ceremony will take place at 4 p.m. on Thursday, June 5, in UC Davis’ ARC Ballroom. The event is free, and the public is welcome.