NC State’s Spontak Receives UNC System Teaching Award

Dr. Richard Spontak, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and materials science and engineering at North Carolina State University, has been honored with an Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of North Carolina (UNC) Board of Governors.

Dr. Richard Spontak

Spontak is one of 17 educators – one from each UNC system campus – who will be presented with Awards for Excellence in Teaching by UNC system President Erskine Bowles and Board of Governors Chairman Jim Phillips Jr. during a luncheon today (May 9) being held in conjunction with the board’s May meeting. Winners will receive a prize of $7,500 and a bronze medallion.

The Board of Governors Awards for Excellence in Teaching were created in 1994 to underscore the importance of teaching and to encourage, recognize, and reward outstanding teaching. Nominees for the award must be tenured professors who have spent at least seven years at the nominating institutions and who have “demonstrated excellent or exceptional teaching ability over a sustained period of time.”

Since joining the NC State engineering faculty 15 years ago, Spontak has integrated teaching and research with equal passion and rigor. He has encouraged his students to engage with the real problems and challenges facing the world, and his students have become well known for participating in science-based competitions and projects. Twenty-six of his undergraduate students have been listed as co-authors on peer-reviewed journal publications. He also has advised more than 100 students, including six Park Scholars.

Spontak earned his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Penn State University and his doctoral degree in chemical engineering from the University of California-Berkeley.

– kulikowski –