Faculty Achievements

 

 

 

 

Auburn University Faculty Awards

• Donna Bohanan
  Joseph A. Kicklighter Endowed Professor - History
  College of Liberal Arts

  • Donna Bohanan, who teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in early modern Europe and world history, says her favorite place on campus is her office, which she describes as "bursting at the seams" with books, research, and students' papers. In the classroom, Bohanan uses notary inventories of noble estates to reconstruct the contents and decorative schemes of homes. She has published two books: Old and New Nobility in Aix-en-Provence, 1600-1695: Portrait of an Urban Elite, in 1992, and Crown and Nobility in Early Modern France in 2001. She is also working on another book-length project and has contributed a chapter to Furnishing the Eighteenth Century, edited by Kathryn Norberg and Dena Goodman. Bohanan started at Auburn in 1982, and finds that being able to teach students ranging from freshmen to doctoral-level at Auburn is richly rewarding.

• Elizabeth Guertal
  Alumni Professor – Agronomy and Soils
  College Agriculture

  • Elizabeth Guertal conducts research and teaches in the area of turfgrass management with a focus on soil fertility and fertilization. She specializes in the area of fertilizer management and the environmental consequences of applied fertilizer. She served as associate editor for Crop Science, Soil Science Society of America Journal and the Agronomy Journal, and as a technical editor for Crop Science. Her biggest inspiration was her mother, Barbara, who received her degree in animal science in 1950—a time when it was rare for women to have a degree in agriculture. Guertal enjoys spending time with her children, Will and Sam, at the Turf Unit where they assist her in collecting data and writing down plot numbers and quality ratings that she provides. She is a fellow in the American Society of Agronomy and is currently serving as a Fulbright scholar on the island of Mauritius.
    
    
  • Auburn professor teaching at University of Mauritius as Fulbright Scholar

    Beth Guertal, an agronomy and soils professor at Auburn University, has been named a Fulbright scholar to teach in Mauritius this fall. Guertal is spending fall semester teaching turfgrass management and sustainable agriculture at the University of Mauritius. She says she also hopes to develop opportunities for her students there and back home at Auburn to get involved with projects on the island's golf courses.

  Paula Backscheider
  Philpott/West Point Stevens Eminent Scholar – English
  College of Liberal Arts

  • Paula R. Backscheider specializes in Restoration and 18th-century literature, feminist criticism, and cultural studies. The author of several books including Daniel Defoe: His Life (winner of the British Council Prize), Spectacular Politics, Reflections on Biography, and Eighteenth-Century Women Poets and their Poetry: Inventing Agency, Inventing Genre (winner of the Modern Language Association Lowell Prize). Two of her books have been selected for the Choice Outstanding Academic Book award. She has published articles in , and many other journals. A former president of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, she has held ACLS, NEH, and Guggenheim Fellowships and is one of the few American members of the Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Edinburgh. An award-winning teacher, she is dedicated to discussion courses and creating an atmosphere in which students can be themselves and feel free to take risks.
    

• Geoffrey Hill
  Professor – Biological Sciences
  College of Sciences and Mathematics

  • Auburn was the location of Geoffrey Hill's first faculty position. He says that Auburn has given him everything he needs to develop his career to his potential, and he has never considered moving to another university. Hill teaches undergraduate ornithology and evolution and systematics, as well as graduate ornithology and advanced concepts in evolution. His research focuses on the function and evolution of ornamental traits in birds and on the ecology and conservation of birds in the Southeast. Hill says his proudest academic accomplishments include having the first chapter of his dissertation published as a single-authored paper in the journal, Nature, and receiving the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering, which is one of the highest honors a young U.S. scientist can receive. Hill's favorite place on campus is the Old Rotation fields, where he and his students conduct research on eastern bluebirds and house finches.

• David Hinson
  School Head and Associate Professor - Architecture
  College of Architecture, Design and Construction

  • David Hinson joined the Auburn faculty in May 1997 and teaches lecture courses in professional practice and seminars on leadership and collaborative practice. He is actively engaged in research into the evolving challenges of architectural practice and how higher education can best prepare students to succeed as professionals and community leaders. Hinson leads the award-winning DESIGNhabitat Program, an ongoing collaboration between the School of Architecture and Habitat for Humanity, which focuses on innovative strategies for affordable housing design and construction. Hinson calls Sambo Mockbee his greatest source of inspiration and says his proudest professional moment was his induction into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 2008. Hinson says his favorite place on campus is the upper and lower Quad because the spaces are the best example of "outdoor rooms" at Auburn, and exemplify how a campus can be more than just a collection of buildings.