The Iowa Board of Regents has selected six outstanding University of Iowa faculty members to be honored for their extraordinary contributions and sustained record of excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service. Each recipient of the Regents Award for Faculty Excellence received a $1,500 stipend and will be honored at an awards celebration during the June Board of Regents meeting in Iowa City.
The recipients were selected by committees appointed by shared governance in collaboration with the UI administration and confirmed by the Board of Regents.
Rima Afifi
Afifi, professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health in the College of Public Health, is internationally known for her research into the health and well-being of youth; tobacco use prevention and control; global health; and refugee health. Her reputation has led to her professional service as an advisor or consultant to many national and international organizations. She is a highly productive scholar, having authored or co-authored more than 115 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and six book chapters. Afifi is the current director of the college’s Prevention Research Center for Rural Health, which works to advance health equity in and across Midwestern communities. Under her leadership, the center has become an important resource for the state of Iowa. In addition, she is a dedicated teacher and mentor. Since 2017, she has served as the doctoral dissertation advisor for two PhD students, as a committee member for five PhD students, and has advised 15 master's students.
Elizabeth Chrischilles
Chrischilles is the Marvin A. and Rose Lee Pomerantz Chair in Public Health in the Department of Epidemiology in the College of Public Health. A trailblazer in pharmacoepidemiology whose research and policy contributions have informed national healthcare systems, Chrischilles is a leading expert on medication safety and effectiveness. Her multi- disciplinary, collaborative work resulted in creation of new FDA medical product surveillance tools and a model for pharmacist-delivered care for Medicaid patients. She has authored or co-authored more than 230 peer-reviewed papers. She is an accomplished instructor—described as enthusiastic and engaged—who uses her expertise to ensure that curriculum is covering contemporary topics in the field. As a mentor, Chrischilles regularly connects with junior faculty as they develop coursework or research proposals. She has served as head of her department since 2017.
Bob McMurray
McMurray is F. Wendell Miller Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He is an international leader in the cognitive science of how people understand speech, how they read, and how they learn language. He is an outstanding instructor both at the graduate and undergraduate levels. He is widely sought out as an instructor for his student-centered approach and enthusiastic lecture style. McMurray is known for his interdisciplinary approach to his work, and he holds appointments across multiple departments and colleges, including communication sciences and disorders, linguistics, and otolaryngology. He is lauded for approaching complicated problems in a straightforward way and for applying his research to understand real-world problems. McMurray is the author of more than 140 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and has mentored 15 PhD candidates across five graduate programs.
Todd Pettys
Pettys is the H. Blair and Joan V. White Chair in Civil Litigation in the College of Law, where he focuses primarily on constitutional law and free speech. He is a respected instructor, and his courses, which include constitutional law and a seminar examining pending Supreme Court cases, routinely hit their maximum enrollments. Pettys is known for his welcoming presence and remarkable ability to approach issues and people with objectivity and fairness. He is the author of a book about the Iowa Constitution and more than 30 law review articles. His works have been cited by state and federal courts across the country, including the Iowa Supreme Court.
Jack Stapleton
Stapleton is a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine in the Carver College of Medicine. He established the University of Iowa HIV/AIDS clinic, the first in the state, shortly after arriving in 1986 and has directed it ever since. A virologist, he studies virus-immune interactions in clinical and laboratory studies, and his work has received continuous external funding for the past 38 years. He has published more than 300 papers and been invited to deliver more than 130 lectures at national and international meetings. Stapleton also is a member of the prestigious Association of American Physicians. He has served on numerous National Institutes of Health and Veterans Administration study sections and the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee. As a teacher, he has trained thousands of infectious disease fellows, medical students, and residents during his career at Iowa.
Jun Wang
Wang is the James E. Ashton Professor of Engineering and interim departmental executive officer of chemical and biochemical engineering. He is a leading expert in satellite remote sensing, which involves using satellites to monitor fires and atmospheric pollutants from space over time. His team developed on-demand capabilities for real-time delivery of weather and air quality forecasts to farmers via interactive websites and cell phone apps, which has helped precision agriculture and public health in rural communities in Iowa, Nebraska, and nearby states. He has authored more than 200 articles that have been cited 11,000 times. His excellence in research and leadership has been underscored by his appointment by NASA to the senior review panel for its earth sciences division in 2017, 2020, and 2023.
