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University of Nebraska–Lincoln

School of Natural Resources

From Earth to Sky and Everything In Between

Faculty Awards and Honors


The School of Natural Resources has faculty who are locally, regionally or nationally and, in some cases, internationally recognized for their work. All are listed alphabetically.

2008 - Faculty Awards

  • Jim Brandle, SNR professor, rreceived the 2008 Holling Family Award for Teaching Excellence in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR), for senior faculty.
  • Jinsheng You and Ayse Irmak received 2008 Layman Award funding -- Dr. You studies climate and hydrology, and Dr. Irmak studies GIS and water resources.

2007 - Faculty Awards

  • Jim Goeke, SNR professor, received the 2007 President’s Citation, given at the discretion of the president of the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum Executive Board, in recognition of outstanding contribution toward the NSA mission.
  • Jim Goeke, SNR professor, received the Excellence in Extension Award from the Gamma Sigma Delta Honor Society of Agriculture.
  • Bob Diffendal, SNR professor emeritus, became a member of the University of Nebraska Foundation Honor Clubs: the UNL Chancellor's Club with Distinction; the President's Club; and the Burnett Society.
  • Bob Diffendal, SNR professor emeritus, was chosen for the seventh straight year for the UNL Speakers Bureau. The Speakers Bureau enlists university faculty to share their expertise for free with various groups.
  • Don Wilhite, The University of Nebraska-Lincoln chapter of Phi Beta Delta, the honor society for international scholars, gave Dr. Donald A. Wilhite its International Scholar of the Year Award on April 5, 2007.
  • Don Rundquist was recently presented with the Outstanding Contributions Award by the Remote Sensing Specialty Group (RSSG) of the Association of American Geographers (AAG). The award honors both career achievements in teaching and research, and professional service to the AAG and RSSG.
  • Jim Merchant received this same award several years ago, and UNL is now one of only two universities to have two faculty members who have been presented with the award (the other is the University of California-Santa Barbara).

2006 - Faculty Awards

  • Tala Awada, Dinsdale Family Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching, Research and Outreach, IANR, UNL 2006.
  • Bob Diffendal, SNR professor emeritus, was chosen for the sixth straight year for the UNL Speakers Bureau. The Speakers Bureau enlists university faculty to share their expertise for free with various groups.
  • Duane Eversoll, F. Edwin Harvey and Vitaly Zlotnik were elected fellows in the Council of the Geological Society of America (GSA). They were among a total of 40 new fellows elected in 2006. Fellowship is an honor given annually by the society to geologists with a minimum of eight years experience in geology or related fields and who have made significant contributions to the science of geology through their research, teaching, administration, and/or service.
  • Bob Diffendal, SNR professor emeritus, has been honored with a foundation in his and his wife Anne's name, the Diffendal Foundation. It will manage a fund from which the cash award for the Diffendal Prize is given in the Department of Geosciences at Sun Yat-Sen University, China. Veterans of many professionally related visits to China, the Diffendals established the Diffendal Prize in 1985 for deserving undergraduate and graduate students in geosciences. The number of recipients and amount of the award vary.
  • Duane Eversoll, SNR geologist, was awarded the Wayne Madsen Award for Community Service by the Nebraska Well Drillers Association, given for a career of service to the water well industry. He was also elected a fellow with the Geological Society of America, as well as with the Center for Great Plains Studies, and was named chair of the Strategic Planning Committee of the National Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG). He is a 2004 former president of ASBOG and serves as an expert in engineering geology for its Council of Examiners, which compiles the fundamentals and professional examinations for registering geologists across the nation.
  • Jim Goeke, SNR hydrogeologist, received an Omtvedt Innovation Award, in recognition of exceptional service to the University of Nebraska and the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Goeke gives an estimated 50 presentations annually to diverse audiences – from school children to well drillers to attorneys – on groundwater and its management. He also works extensively with natural resources districts, landowners and irrigators to help them better understand and manage water resources.
  • Ed Harvey, SNR hydrogeologist, has been appointed to a LEAD-21 Administrative Internship within CASNR and will serve as the Director of the Justin Morrill Scholars Program.
  • Larkin Powell, SNR associate professor of wildlife, received a Certificate of Recognition for Contributions to Students from the UNL Parents Association/Teaching Council.
  • Drew Tyre, received the junior faculty “Excellence in Research" award from the Agricultural Research Division.
  • Shashi Verma, SNR micrometeorologist, received the 2006 award for Outstanding Achievement in Biometeorology given by the American Meteorology Society, the nation's leading professional society for atmospheric and related sciences. He was honored for research into carbon dioxide and water vapor exchanges in the Earth's ecosystems.
  • Betty Walter-Shea, SNR climatologist, has been awarded the Alumni Service Award from the CASNR Alumni Association.
  • Don Wilhite, SNR climatologist, received an Omtvedt Innovation Award. Named for former Vice Chancellor of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources Irv Omtvedt, the award recognizes areas of strength and promise within the Institute and innovative research and programs.

2005- Faculty Awards

  • Bob Diffendal, SNR professor emeritus, was chosen for the fifth straight year for the UNL Speakers Bureau. The Speakers Bureau enlists university faculty to share their expertise for free with various groups.
  • Patricia (Trish) Freeman, SNR biologist, received a Certificate of Recognition for Contributions to Students by the UNL Parents Association and the Teaching Council. This recognition is for faculty or staff who have "made a difference" in the lives of individual students.
  • Karl Reinhard, SNR anthropologist, was awarded senior specialist status with the Fulbright Commission of the U.S. Department of State. The Fulbright Senior Specialists Program differs from the traditional Fulbright Scholar program in that the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) builds a roster of specialists in a variety of disciplines through an open application process. Reinhard’s first assignment in this program was to teach a course on Ancient Diet and Modern Diabetes at the Universidade de São Paulo January-February 2005.
  • Jozsef Szilagyi, SNR hydrologist with a split appointment with the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, was awarded a Doctorate of Science by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He is one of the youngest recipients of this degree, held only by about 2,000 scientists in Hungary.

2004 - Faculty Awards

  • The Carbon Sequestration Program team, investigators and participants, received the IANR Team Award. The lead team members include SNR faculty: Shashi Verma, Anatoly Gitelson, Kenneth Hubbard, Johannes Knops, Donald Rundquist,  Betty Walter-Shea and Andrew Suyker. SNR staff involved are George Burba, Ed Cunningham, Cindy Hays, Jim Hines, Bryan Leavitt, Mark Mesarch, Glen Roebke and Todd Schimelfenig.
  • Duane Eversoll, SNR research geologist, became president of the national Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG). ASBOG aims to instill and protect professional standards in the practice of geology by administering standardized exams to prospective geologists and advocates for consistent state registration procedures. This role includes acting as a conduit for sharing information among the states.
  • Scott Josiah, formerly SNR extension forester, now state forester for the Nebraska Forest Service, an SNR affiliate, was awarded the Outstanding New Specialist Award by the Nebraska Cooperative Extension Association, a professional organization representing professionals of University of Nebraska--Lincoln Extension.
  • Bob Kuzelka, director of the UNL Environmental Studies Program, a joint program of the School of Natural Resources and the College of Arts and Sciences, received the Teaching Award of Merit from the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture (NACTA). Given in conjunction with the University of Nebraska, CASNR and the SNR, the award recognizes “meritorious efforts in college teaching.”
  • Jim Merchant, associate director of the Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies (CALMIT), was honored with the MidAmerica GIS Consortium (MAGIC) Lifetime Achievement Award. It recognizes Merchant's three decades of contributions to Geographic Information Science. MAGIC is a nonprofit educational organization that fosters applications of geographic information systems (GIS) and related geospatial technologies in the Midcontinent region (http://magicweb.kgs.ku.edu/).
  • Ed Peters, now SNR professor emeritus of fisheries, received the Holling Family Award for Teaching Excellence in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR), for senior faculty.
  • Larkin Powell, SNR associate professor of wildlife, received the Junior Faculty Holling Family award for teaching excellence.
  • Shashi Verma, SNR micrometeorologist and Charles Bessey Professor, has been selected as an American Society of Agronomy Fellow. He is the director of the Great Plains Regional Center of the National Institute for Global Environmental Change (GPRC-NIGEC). His research focuses on agricultural meteorology, atmospheric trace gas exchange and carbon sequestration.

2003 Awards

  • CALMIT’s web site was selected for an ESRI “Special Achievement in GIS” award.  As the U.S. Geological Survey’s AmericaView site for Nebraska, the Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies (CALMIT) provides provide easy, low-cost access to remotely-sensed data and other geospatial data, the award citation said. They created a geospatial delivery system which allowed users to view, download and print the data. The development team consisted of Donald Rundquist, CALMIT director; James Merchant, CALMIT associate director; Albert Peters, formerly CALMIT coordinator; Jeffrey Arnold, CALMIT manager and application developer; and Chad Boshart, CALMIT GIS specialist.
  • Robert F. Diffendal, Jr. , SNR professor emeritus, was named to the UNL Speakers Bureau, which begins its ninth season this year. The Speakers Bureau is a free service that provides faculty and other university experts as speakers on a variety of topics to service organizations, schools and other groups.
  • Diffendal was also given an Outstanding Service Award from Science Camps Offering Rewarding Experiences (SCORE), sponsored by the Imperial Grade School Foundation, for nine years of service to SCORE.
  • Geoff Henebry, formerly research associate professor with the Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies, received the IANR Dinsdale Family Faculty Award for outstanding teaching, research and outreach.
  • Scott Hygnstrom was awarded Professor of the Month in January by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Mortar Board, Black Masque Chapter.

2002 Awards

  • Dallas Virchow and Scott Hygnstrom won the Charles E. Bessey Award for the best natural science article published in Great Plains Research for "Distribution and Abundance of Black-tailed Prairie Dogs in the Great Plains: A Historical Perspective."
  • Ken Dewey, SNR climatologist, received the Certificate of Recognition for Contributions to Students by the University of Nebraska Teaching Council/Parents Association for the seventh time.