A pair of William & Mary professors were named recipients of Outstanding Faculty Awards by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
The awards, of which roughly a dozen are given each year, are eligible to be given to faculty members at institutions of higher education in Virginia who have shown excellence in teaching, research, knowledge integration and public service.
William & Mary’s recipients this year are professor of biology John Swaddle and assistant professor of anthropology Jennifer Kahn.
The selections of Swaddle and Kahn bring William & Mary’s total number of SCHEV Outstanding Faculty Award recipients to 40, which is more than any other school in Virginia.
“It takes broad-ranging accomplishments of absolutely compelling quality to win an outstanding faculty award,” said William & Mary President Taylor Reveley. “William & Mary is very proud of professors Kahn and Swaddle.”
Both Swaddle and Kahn were conducting fieldwork out of the country when the Outstanding Faculty Awards were announced. Swaddle is currently spending a year as a visiting research associate at the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter in the U.K., while Kahn is doing fieldwork in the Pacific Islands.
Swaddle’s current research involves how rapid environmental change affects bird populations and is helping to develop technology that would discourage pest birds from farms and airports.
Kahn is exploring the strategies used by South Pacific island populations over time to deal with environmental changes, as well as investigating the colonization and settlement within the Pacific islands.
Both Swaddle and Kahn will be recognized Feb. 16 during a ceremony at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, where Gov. Terry McAuliffe will address the recipients of the award.
The awards consist of an engraved plaque and $5,000 underwritten by the Dominion Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Dominion Resources, the parent company of Dominion Virginia Power.
