22nd Annual Faculty and Staff Awards

Timothy Dransfield, Chemistry

“Professor Dransfield is clearly very passionate about chemistry. He was always energetic and engaging. Even at 9:15 in the morning he was always ready to teach and constantly stayed on topic. Overall great professor.”

Joshua Hertz, Engineering

“There are not enough words to describe how great of a teacher Professor Hertz is, he is always so excited to teach the class and creates a fun, engaging, easy going environment that this class would have seriously missed with any other instructor.”

Aaron Block, English

“Professor Block is very friendly and teaches with enthusiasm. He was very knowledgeable and definitely cares about us as people rather than students. He was a great teacher because he was fun and helpful.”

John Lindhe, Mathematics

“Professor Lindhe is a great professor and provides enough examples and explanations in class to make sure you understand the math. He clearly conveys information and made his expectations for the quizzes and tests extraordinarily clear.”

Alessandra Di Credico, Physics

“Professor Di Credico is always energetic and helpful when covering confusing topics. She is overall a very good professor who is very enthusiastic and a pleasure to have as a teacher.”

Jessica Ormsby, CEE Co-op

“Since joining Northeastern’s co-op team in August 2016, Jessica has emerged as a leader within the CEE co-op education program. A true highlight of the year was the 2019 CEE Excellence in Teaching Award. Jessica’s commitment to teaching and advising including the ‘ability to inspire’ truly resonates with our engineering students.”

“In service, Jessica’s leadership of the Engineers without Borders chapter as faculty advisor culminated in the student chapter award in November 2019 as ‘Premier Student Chapter of the Year’ by EWB-USA.”

Nathanial Ziegler, MIE Co-op

“Nate has been a valuable contributor to COE for over six years… His dedication to providing robust co-op opportunities, maintaining strong co-op employer relationships, ability to motivate his students, and general flowing positivity are just a few reasons for this nomination.”

“Nate advised 117 students in 2019; his dedication and commitment to his student advisees is evident in all that he does. He takes the time to get to know all his students, including their background, long-term career goals, and interests outside of academics.”

Constantinos Mavroidis
College of Engineering Distinguished Professor
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

View a brochure of Professor Mavroidis’ research legacy (pdf)

Xiaoning Jin, MIE

“Dr. Jin’s original fundamental research, innovation for transformative technology development for a wide spectrum of manufacturing applications, and broad impact on the manufacturing industry make her highly deserving of the Outstanding Translational Research Award.”

“Even as Prof. Jin is at the beginning of her academic career, she is already leading in her field and exemplifying the level of translational importance for her research.”

Nian Sun, ECE

“Through his efforts, Professor Sun is actively engaged in translating his outstanding research into the real world and engineering next-generation sensors, antennas, and tunable components for next-generation devices.”

“Professor Sun has shown enormous dedication in translating his research into inventions that are expected to impact the miniaturization of next-generation wireless and sensor devices. He is highly deserving of the COE Outstanding Translational Research Award.”

Marilyn Minus, MIE

“As a successful female researcher, Dr. Minus is a role model. She is an outstanding scientist, innovator, engineer, communicator, and a great mentor. She is an ideal candidate for this award given her outstanding work, her extraordinary academic background, research achievements, and extraordinary commitment as a mentor for younger faculty members.”

Sandra Shefelbine, MIE

“Professor Shefelbine is a distinguished researcher, enthusiastic teacher, attentive supervisor and outstanding mentor. Shefelbine leads by example in her endless curiosity, critical thinking and pursuit of excellence. She instills these important values not only in a research setting, but also in the classroom and outreach activities. Prof. Shefelbine maintains the perfect balance by challenging us to explore, learn, and expand our knowledge, while also providing us with the direction and necessary tools to achieve our goals. Sandra is truly an irreplaceable asset to our community and a deserving candidate for this award.”

Laura Meyer, MGEN Co-op

“Over the last three years, I have known Laura to be a fantastic teammate, always cheerful and exceptional in everything she does. Her quick-wit, attention to detail, and loyalty to the University have endeared her to colleagues. She is a true champion for higher education with a tireless commitment to serving our University.”

Stratis Ioannidis, ECE

“Stratis works truly in the interest of the students and is an excellent role model as a teacher. He has been an excellent mentor for his graduate students and patiently and thoughtfully advises them. The warm nature of his personality truly engages students in their pursuits. Stratis is the kind of teacher that you come across only rarely.”

“Stratis is patient in teaching and guiding students to learn concepts. He spends plenty of time to help students derive theorems and guides them in their writing. Even with his busy schedule… he always finds time for students.”

Courtney Pfluger, ChE

“Courtney is an exceptional teacher who has had a substantial impact on students and on her colleagues and has significantly influenced the curriculum in both the first-year engineering program as well as chemical engineering over the past nine years.”

“I think Professor Pfluger is a great candidate for this award because she provides excellence in teaching and inspiring contributions to student learning… She doesn’t hesitate to go above and beyond to ensure her students succeed, even if that means challenging the status quo and changing things that aren’t working.”

David Deeter, CEE

“David is resourceful, solution-oriented, and approaches projects with creativity and curiosity. He thinks “outside the box,” which has yielded some of CEE’s most successful campaigns to date. Moreover, he regularly takes on the challenge of learning new technology and other skillsets to further augment the materials CEE is able to create within the department… He never fails to highlight the accomplishments of others, and in turn, we would like to acknowledge his.”

Noah Joseph, BioE

“Noah is a valued member of the Bioengineering team… He maintains a cheerful, professional demeanor always, and is sensitive to stressed Capstone students and researchers facing deadlines.”

“As the Sherman Center Lab Technician, Noah has swiftly become a trusted member of our students, faculty, and staff community. Chief among his accomplishments is his effective design and execution of the safety, security, and operational protocols for the Sherman Makerspace… Noah has exceeded expectations by taking the initiative to vet the safety of all Sherman venture projects.”

Sarah Dosier, ChE

“Early in 2020, Sarah was the sole staff member in the dept., serving nearly 40 tenured, tenure-track and teaching faculty, as well as 500 undergraduate and 200 graduate students. This same time corresponded to a high level of activity in graduate admissions and our department chair search… During this period Sarah has addressed all requests and expanded roles with impressive efficiency.”

“Importantly, Sarah acts in a proactive, rather than a reactive, manner to identify potential issues, best practices and pending opportunities to help ensure that the department operations run smoothly.”

Mariah Nobrega, Dean’s Office

“As the Director of Research Development for COE, Mariah has exhibited creativity and leadership by spearheading numerous new initiatives meant to encourage support and inform faculty on resources available to them to make their research and proposal efforts that much stronger.”

“Across all matters, Mariah consistently demonstrates leadership and an ability to motivate others in pursuit of excellence towards their research efforts.”