Fatima Husain uses magnetic resonance imaging in her research.
Dr. Fatima Husain, professor of speech and hearing science, has been named the 2022 King J. and Marjorie R. McCristal Distinguished Scholar in the College of Applied Health Sciences, the most prestigious recognition of scholarly achievement given by the College. The award presentation and McCristal Lecture will take place on August 16, 2022, as part of the AHS Fall College Meeting.
Dr. Husain joined the Department of Speech and Hearing Science as an assistant professor in 2008. She earned her PhD in cognitive and neural systems at Boston University and joined the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, part of the National Institutes of Health, first as a post-doctoral fellow and then as a research fellow.
Dr. Husain uses a combination of computational modeling, brain imaging experiments, and behavioral experiments to research hearing and speech perception, as well as the disorders associated with them, such as hearing loss and tinnitus. Through this multi-method approach, she is able to simulate auditory and speech perception in the brain. The modeling enables her to make predictions that can be tested using behavioral and imaging tools, ultimately facilitating the evaluation of existing therapies and the proposal of novel treatment methods. She is the director of the Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience Lab.
The King James McCristal Scholar Award was established in 1988 to honor King McCristal, dean of AHS from 1961-1973.
Andrew Bender served in the U.S. Army and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel (Photo provided)
Andrew Bender has been hired as Director of Operations at Chez Veterans Center, effective July 1.
Bender, who served in the U.S. Army and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel, comes to Chez from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Career Center, where he has been serving as the associate director for operations and strategic initiatives. Prior to coming to Illinois, Bender worked as a workforce development manager for the McLean County Chamber of Commerce, and an operations manager and learning and development manager for Amazon.
“I am humbled and deeply honored that AHS has given me the privilege to join the Chez Veterans Center team,” Bender said. “I embrace the opportunity to continue my service supporting the men and women who have given so much to our nation. I cannot wait to come on board and work with the fantastic AHS and Chez team to create a better place for our veterans and military-affiliated students.”
Bender steps into the role that has been served for the past four years by Dr. Reggie Alston, the associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Applied Health Sciences.
Bender also served as the chair of and professor in the Department of Military Science at Illinois State University’s ROTC program. In his time in the U.S. Army, Bender served in a variety of administrative roles, most recently as the Chief of Staff/Deputy Commander of the Joint Communications Unit at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Alumni of the College of Applied Health Sciences have myriad career options thanks to the tremendous diversity of programs. We periodically will put the spotlight on an alum to find out what they’re doing now, what experiences they had and what AHS means to them. This week, we talk to Kelsey Beccue, an RST alum who is development manager for the Urbana Park District.
Q: Why did you pick AHS?
A: Choosing AHS was primarily a function of it being the home of my preferred major—Recreation, Sport, and Tourism.
Q: Which professors had the most impact on you?
A: This is kind of a toughie, but I’ll go with Professor (Cindy) Wachter. I was in the second semester of my sophomore year and still undecided. I had registered for a host of classes, attended them all my first week and promptly dropped them and registered for new ones. One of the classes I registered for was an Intro to Recreation, Sport, and Tourism class taught by Professor Wachter, and I LOVED IT! Once I was in there, I felt like I finally had some sense of direction and selected RST as my area of study. I still had some figuring out to do career-wise, but was finally taking classes that resonated with me.
Q: What course did you most enjoy?
A: I can’t remember the official course title anymore, but I did take a recreation programming class with Lori Kay Paden that was outstanding, and a great “real world” type of experience.
Q: Did you enter AHS knowing your career path, or did AHS help you decide?
A: I definitely did not know my career path when I headed into AHS, but with help from my RST advisor, I got a push in the right direction. When I first came into RST, I thought I wanted a concentration in Tourism Management, but after working through things with my advisor, it became quite obvious that Recreation Management was the right direction for me, and that set me on the course that brought me to where I am today.
Q: Did your AHS experience lead to your current job?
A: Yes—thanks required internship!
Q: What is your current job?
A: I am currently the Development Manager at the Urbana Park District.
Q: What was your favorite on-campus experience?
A: I worked in the concessions division of the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics during college, and getting the opportunity to work the different sporting events was really cool. I attended a lot of sporting events I might not have attended otherwise. The football game days were fun, too. Long, but fun—great crew to work with! Seeing Sara Bareilles perform at Foellinger with some of my best pals ranks highly, too!
Q: What would you say to recommend AHS to a prospective student?
A: I’d say that it’s a great college—it’s smaller so you don’t get lost in the crowd as much, and the faculty and advisors are great!
Apsan Bishwokarma looks over notes in a Warrior-Scholar Project class, hosted at the Chez Veterans Center. (Photo by Ethan Simmons)
While Adam Sherman Jr. sat for the two-hour bus ride from Chicago O’Hare Airport to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus, a pit was forming in his stomach.
He’d spent six years in the Navy, stationed in Japan and California for three years apiece, sometimes working out at sea for six or 12 months at a time. But a few preparatory problem sets for the Warrior-Scholar Project’s academic boot camp had him stumped.
“I didn’t know if I’d be able to knock off the dust and the rust to get going in this program,” said Sherman, who grew up in New Jersey.
After spending four days in the camp absorbing astronomy and physics lectures from University of Illinois faculty at the Chez Veterans Center, Sherman’s first taste of higher education was going “really smooth,” he said.
“They broke it down in a way that’s really digestible, and they’re building it up in a way where it’s really fast-paced, but it’s comprehensible,” he said.
This July, 15 student Veterans took classes and teamed up on projects in the Chez Veterans Center, the University of Illinois’ one-stop shop for military-connected students. The center has hosted the nonprofit Warrior-Scholar Project for the three consecutive years.
The Warrior-Scholar Project, or WSP for short, takes place in college campuses across the country as an eight-day higher ed experience for military Veterans of all ages.
The WSP and Chez Veterans Center’s missions are aligned—both are dedicated to easing the transition of military-connected students back into education and civilian life.
“The premise of WSP is really about showing them they can do it, giving them the confidence they can leave the military and go to a place like the University of Illinois,” said Chez Veterans Center Director of Operations Andy Bender.
“I think what’s great for us in particular is (WSP) follows our mission. We’re all about the successful transition from the military into higher education—this is a good steppingstone for it. But it also gets a lot of our campus partners who may not have connections to the military to come and meet these students.”
WSP Education Programs Coordinator Rebecca Mills called Illinois’ Chez Veterans Center one of the program’s “top campus stakeholders,” for going “above and beyond” for student cohorts. A core component for both organizations: Showing Veterans that the talents they’ve built in the service are transferable to the classroom.
“It’s less the content—we know they’re capable, we know they have the experience. But how do they use the skills they developed in the military to be successful in higher ed?” Mills said.
A whopping 88 percent of Warrior-Scholar Project alumni have either obtained a college degree or are on track to complete one (Photo by Ethan Simmons)
Some students, such as Sherman, enter the Warrior-Scholar Project with no college credits. Others, such as Sergio Perez Jr., a 26-year-old Marine Corps veteran from Oklahoma, used WSP to re-familiarize himself with the pace of university life.
When he left the service in October 2023, he “had one goal in mind: and that was to go back and finish my degree,” he said.
“For me, WSP was a ‘two birds with one stone’ type of deal, because University of Illinois was actually one of the schools I’m thinking about applying to in the future,” Perez added. “When I saw they still had openings for this, I thought, ‘You know what? I can do a quick campus tour while still self improving.’ So this has given me a better understanding of how this campus functions.”
A whopping 88 percent of Warrior-Scholar Project alumni have either obtained a college degree or are on track to complete one, according to their internal statistics. This year, Illinois also hosted WSP’s annual alumni conference, where bootcamp graduates return to network and listen to industry professionals with military connections.
A Veteran careers panel discussion included Mona Dexter, Comcast’s vice president of Military and Veteran Affairs; Michael Pett, Uber’s head of Military and Veteran Programs at Uber; Erica Jeffries Purdo, vice president of Strategy and Operations at Johnson & Johnson; and Tommy Jones, senior director of Military and Talent Programs at Walmart.
During the campus visit, the student cohort got to tour Research Park businesses such as Caterpillar’s Innovation Center and Hourglass Medical, a wearable technology company. Before they left campus, Chez staff brought them to a celebratory visit to the Colonnades Club in Memorial Stadium, itself a tribute to U. of I. veterans who fought in World War I.
“Illinois might be one of the best-kept secrets in higher ed; You walk into a building and learn about a Nobel prize winner who invented something you use every day,” Bender said. “We’ve had a couple people who’ve told us, ‘I wanna come here.’”
The Undergraduate Research Symposium returned to the Illini Union this year.
Community Health senior Tyler Roberson gave an oral presentation on housing insecure students.
Sixty-five students representing all five undergraduate majors in the College of Applied Health Sciences made presentations about their work at the campus-wide 2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium. It was the largest contingent of AHS students to take part in the event, which began in 2008 and ran annually until the COVID pandemic pre-empted it in 2020 and made it a virtual event in 2021. This year’s event took place on April 28 in the Illini Union.
Seven students in the community health, kinesiology, and interdisciplinary health sciences degree programs were invited to give oral presentations of their research, while the remaining students participated in poster sessions. Participating students included 37 Edmund J. James Scholars; seven participants in the AHS Students Pursuing Applications, Research, and Knowledge—or SPARK—program, which introduces outstanding freshmen to research; 12 participants in the Student Aging Researchers in Training—or START—program, which places undergraduate scholars in labs across the college; and eight scholars in the Mannie L. Jackson Illinois Academic Enrichment and Leadership Program, a college-wide support program for underrepresented and first-generation students, student-athletes, and those recognized by the President Awards Program and Educational Opportunities Program.
KCH Dept. Head Kim Graber, left, with Bill Chittenden and Wendy Rogers, right (Photo by Michelle Hassel)
The focus of the Chittenden Symposium was on human factors in health technology, with the goal of advancing a research agenda. But according to Kinesiology and Community Health Professor Wendy Rogers, the roadmap needs to first be drawn.
Rogers was part of the final presentation on April 13 of the symposium, a collaboration between the College of Applied Health Sciences’ Kinesiology & Community Health Department (KCH) and the Grainger College of Engineering’s Department of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering (ISE).
Rogers was part of a panel discussion—along with ISE Associate Professor Girish Krishnan—entitled, “Future Directions for Collaborative Opportunities.”
“What we’re talking about is relevant to what the National Academy of Engineering has proposed in terms of grand challenges,” Rogers said. “We need to have these opportunities (future symposiums) to see what each of us is doing and how we can work together.”
Rogers also talked about the need to match up research priorities with funding streams.
“Some of the things that the (National Institutes of Health) is highlighting is what we are doing here,” the Khan Professor of Applied Health Sciences said. “We want to think about how best to capitalize on our strengths to best match what their priorities are. I was excited and inspired about what we can do.”
The symposium is the vision of William and Carol Chittenden, two Illinois alums who long supported research combining Health/Kinesiology and engineering technology, including aging and later-year quality of life issues. The symposium, which began in 2015, returned this year after a five-year hiatus.
Susan Martinis, the Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation, was the first speaker of the day and said she couldn’t “imagine a timelier topic” and that the university’s response to COVID-19 was an “extraordinary national model.”
“This kind of innovation just doesn’t happen,” she said. “Our response to COVID is really part of the DNA at Illinois. Decades of investments in people and symposiums like this. The spirit of collaboration can tackle the most vexing of problems. Our bench is incredibly deep.”
AHS Dean Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell said she was “proud of the role the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health has played in organizing this important event, and grateful for our ongoing partnership with the Grainger College of Engineering.”
“The collaboration between health and engineering has led to developments that we couldn’t have imagined in the not-too-distant past,” Hanley-Maxwell said. “Virtual reality as a means of helping patients manage pain; companion robots that entertain chronically ill children while allowing them to monitor their condition; 3-D printing of personalized prosthetics; and wearable sensors that enable patients to share vital health statistics with their doctors from the comfort of their own homes. Technology is revolutionizing and improving health care, and the potential for its impact seems boundless.”
Hanley-Maxwell noted that AHS made a commitment to taking a leadership role in education and research related to health care and technology.
“I hope today’s symposium inspires further discussion, collaboration, and innovation,” she said.
“This kind of innovation just doesn’t happen. Our response to COVID is really part of the DNA at Illinois. Decades of investments in people and symposiums like this. The spirit of collaboration can tackle the most vexing of problems. Our bench is incredibly deep.”
Susan Martinis
Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation
Keynote speaker Emily Patterson, a professor in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences in the College of Medicine at Ohio State, talked about the need to incorporate human factors into health research, and the importance of “framing problems differently.”
Patterson was followed by four presentations, two each from ISE and KCH.
ISE Assistant Professor Abigail Wooldridge discussed the importance of health technology in improving the “handover,” meaning the transition of patient care, whether it is in the same hospital and different shifts, or to a different hospital and medical staff.
“Care transitions are a process, and the things that happen before or after that are really important. They are really crucial to patient care.”
Wooldridge said strategies are needed to augment human coding to improve care transitions and the “tension between reporting and interrogation. Social glue is what helps clinicians work together down the road.”
KCH Assistant Professor Manuel Hernandez talked about advances in wearable technology to prevent fall prevention, noting that one in four adults over the age of 65 falls each year, and that one in five falls lead to serious injury.
“In the near future, wrist bands, watches, shoes and shirts will be able to measure how much we move on a daily basis,” Hernandez said. He said this wearable technology will be able to detect any changes in movement, slowing, or gait malfunction. The use of wearable technology can mitigate or even prevent the odds of falling and reduce injuries, Hernandez said.
ISE Specialized Teaching Assistant Professor Avinash Gupta talked about the role of human interaction in designing virtual reality-based healthcare training. Among Gupta’s proposals is a virtual reality-based training environment for first responders, a 3D educational platform for healthcare students and a VR simulation training for neonatal procedures.
KCH Professor Ken Wilund wrapped up the presentations with his talk on how technology can be used to improve hemodialysis patient outcomes.
“Hemodialysis is pretty brutal,” Wilund said. “It’s a difficult, challenging life, and it’s treated pharmacologically, with 18 pills a day. It’s one of the most expensive diseases to treat. It costs about $100,000 per patient per year … pretty close to one percent of the federal budget is spent on dialysis patients.”
Wilund said his biggest questions were how to get hemodialysis (HD) patients moving more and make it sustainable, and how to get HD patients to eat fewer processed foods and less salt. Technological advances might help, Wilund said, noting that an Internet-based Positive Psych Intervention (PPI) reduced depression in HD patients, but that the iPad might not be a sustainable delivery method.
Wilund acknowledged that a personalized plan for patients was necessary, that behavior change principles need to be incorporated into treatment, and that remote treatment would be necessary to achieve long-term success.
“We have been sticking bikes in front of dialysis patients and telling them what they can’t eat… for 40 years,” Wilund said. “There has to be a better way.”
Following the presentations, Rogers and Krishnan engaged in a lively discussion with audience members on what can be done to advance collaborations and build on the momentum of the symposium.
“Seminars are great, but how do we scale this up?,” Krishnan asked. “What’s the best mechanism to get the engineers and health care researchers together?”
Rogers said, “It’s really going back and forth and making sure we’re talking to each other. We’ve talked about how to do that better to provide opportunities for both colleges.”
KCH Professor Jeff Woods, who was the master of ceremonies, suggested leveraging virtual platforms to increase collaboration, while Wilund said giving increased responsibilities to graduate students would give them more opportunities to build their CV, while giving faculty members the space for big-picture ideas.
But all in attendance agreed on one point: they need to keep in contact.
“A future meeting to spark collaborations is important,” Rogers added.
When the symposium ended, attendees—including Bill Chittenden III, son of Bill and Carol—boarded vans for the opportunity to tour the McKechnie Family LIFE Home and see demonstrations of current collaborative research in human factors and health. Directed by Dr. Rogers, the McKechnie Family LIFE Home includes a simulation of a two-bedroom home with a garage for research and development, as well as meeting and office space to support the research activities.
The use of green spaces such as parks and trails has increased through the ebbs and flows of COVID-19 (Stock image)
Research has shown that leisure time physical activity in outdoor spaces has more positive health benefits than physical activity done indoors. Fully one-third of the U.S. population, however, has no access to green spaces, nor to the associated health benefits.
These were among the findings shared during the 2022 AHS Distinguished Lecturer presentation given by Dr. Ingrid Schneider, professor and eminent scholar of recreation and tourism in the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Minnesota.
Leisure time physical activity increases the immune response to viral respiratory infections. Dr. Schneider cited a study of 60,000 South Africans which found that those who exercised more had fewer hospitalizations with COVID, fewer intensive care admissions, less frequently required ventilators, and less frequently died.
“Nearly a decade ago, the America Public Health Association prioritized access to green spaces, emphasizing the need for safe, walkable communities and green spaces to promote an active lifestyle across the lifespan,” she said.
While the use of green spaces such as parks and trails has increased through the ebbs and flows of COVID-19, the ongoing pandemic also served to accentuate and compound issues of inequality.
“Communities of lower socioeconomic status and minority communities have less access to green spaces and tend to have lower quality parks,” Dr. Schneider said. “People of color are overrepresented in neighborhoods with lack of access to green space and live further from safe green space.”
The COVID pandemic has heightened awareness that racism is a public health threat. Prior to the pandemic, local officials viewed parks and recreation spending as discretionary. Those calling for green space have never been louder, more diverse, or more perfectly positioned, Dr. Schneider said.
“Collective planning and policy can amplify those voices for green spaces as critical infrastructure and contributors to health and well-being,” she said. “We can’t wait another decade, we can’t wait another year, we really can’t wait another day to address the inequities in systemic health.”
The severity of COVID’s impact on black communities was a predictable result of structural and social reality. Cities cannot be fixed, Dr. Schneider said, if we don’t insist on dismantling racial, economic, and environmental inequities.
“Green space is an essential part of healthy, resilient, and vibrant communities,” she said. “Given the evidence of the health benefits of green space, withholding access to them for a third of U.S. residents is simply unacceptable and unjust.”
I love doing projects, so I spent a lot of time doing those. I was able to even refurbish a 100-year-old round dining room table, and I love how it turned out. I also enjoyed having lazy days with my husband and my dog when I wasn’t working on coursework.
What inspired you to pursue a MHA degree?
I started my undergraduate college career thinking I wanted to be a doctor, then I switched to being a nurse. I even took a CNA course through Parkland College, and I realized that the clinical side of healthcare was just not for me. I knew I wanted to have a career in healthcare, so that led me to getting my Bachelors in Community Health. Once I was done with that, I knew I wanted to have the ability to hold a leadership position in healthcare someday, which ultimately led me to purse a MHA degree.
Why did you choose Illinois for your MHA?
My choice to go to Illinois for college started when I was super young. That’s why I pursued my undergraduate degree at Illinois, and I loved the university so much that I decided to stay two more years to complete the MHA program.
What advice do you have for current students OR prospective students?
Enjoy your time as a student and take advantage of all of the opportunities the program and university have to offer. I know all too well what it’s like to feel like you’re behind, like you should be onto the next step of life already. BUT once your time as a student is over, you have to enter the scary world of adulting so take full advantage of the life as a student while you can as everything will work itself out, and you’ll be grateful for all of the experiences you received during your time at Illinois.
Hope and optimism emphasized by speakers at Chittenden Symposium
KCH Dept. Head Kim Graber, left, with Bill Chittenden and Wendy Rogers, right (Photo by Michelle Hassell)
The theme of the 2022 Chittenden Symposium is Human Factors for Health Technology. But the heart of the event is really a love story.
The Chittenden Symposium, which returns in 2022 after a five-year hiatus, is a collaboration of the Dept. of Kinesiology and Community Health (College of Applied Health Sciences) and The Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering (The Grainger College of Engineering).
The symposium is the vision of William and Carol Chittenden, who long supported research combining engineering technology and health, including aging and later-year quality of life issues. For the Chittendens, their support of the University of Illinois is borne of their experiences on campus. William, a member of the College of Engineering Hall of Fame, graduated from the College of Engineering in 1951. During his time on the Urbana-Champaign campus, he met Carol, a Kinesiology major. It was the beginning of a lifetime of love that spanned more than 65 years.
“I think they just felt that the university added so much to their lives that they wanted to give back, pay it forward,” said Bill Chittenden III, William and Carol’s son. “And that’s how (their support of Illinois) got started.
The idea to support KCH and ISE made perfect sense, Bill said, given his father’s engineering expertise and his mother’s kinesiology studies.
“I think it started, really, as my dad supporting the engineering college,” he said. “And then my mom, given her degree, wanted to help her college. And then at some point they thought they could make a bigger impact by combining their resources to develop and support the interdisciplinary work between those colleges.
“As far as Health Sciences goes, my mom was truly fascinated with the human body. Her detailed knowledge of human anatomy, which she learned at Illinois, was often a topic of conversation. I think that was the impetus for focusing on Applied Health Sciences.”
Bill said the symposium serves another purpose: providing an opportunity for students and faculty to further develop and utilize their communication skills.
“It had a lot to do with my dad’s belief in the importance of strong communication skills. He was an excellent writer and speaker, which are strengths not always found in technical fields,” Bill said. “It was important to him that engineers and people with other technical backgrounds be good writers and speakers, so they are able to communicate technical subjects and ideas effectively to a wider audience. The interdisciplinary feature of the symposium is designed to encourage people to hear different perspectives.
Those different perspectives will be on full display in this year’s symposium. It is headlined by keynote speaker Emily Patterson, a professor at The Ohio State University. Dr. Patterson’s topic is “Enhancing innovation by incorporating human factors engineering into allied health research.”
Four faculty members will make presentations, with two each from KCH and ISE.
Abigail Wooldridge, ISE: Designing digital health technology to support care transitions in hospitals
Manuel Hernandez, KCH: Advances in Wearable Technology for Fall Prevention
Avinash Gupta, ISE: Role of Human Computer Interaction in the Design of eXtended Reality (XR) based Training Environments in the Healthcare Domain
Ken Wilund (KCH): Technology Applications for Promoting Behavior Change in Hemodialysis Patients
A discussion will follow the presentations, and then attendees will have the opportunity to tour the McKechnie Family LIFE Home, which Bill Chittenden said he was eager to see. Directed by Dr. Wendy Rogers, a professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, the McKechnie Family LIFE Home includes a simulation of a two-bedroom home with garage where research and development will take place, and meeting and office space to support the research activities.
For the Chittendens, the symposium is only one of the opportunities they’ve created through their more than 30 years of support for the University. They created the Carol Chittenden Scholarship, awarded annually to an undergraduate student in the Kinesiology and Community Health Department; and the William Chittenden Fellowship, awarded annually to a graduate student in Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering. They also sponsor an award for best graduate thesis relating Engineering and Applied Health Sciences.
Now, they are hoping this event becomes a source of inspiration for participants that lead to solutions to problems. “The goal is primarily to inspire participants, get people together to exchange ideas, see what others are working on, and make connections in the field. You get people thinking about how they can make a difference and get new ideas on ways to do that. Technology is moving so fast. And I think the goal of the symposium and the financial support is really to get technology and the benefits it brings moving even faster.”
Our College of Applied Health Sciences college awards.
The College of Applied Health Sciences has awarded eleven faculty, staff, and students college awards for excellence. Three individuals received campus-level awards. All recipients will be honored at the Spring College Meeting in May.
AHS Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award: Faculty Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Associate Professor Andiara Schwingel, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health Since joining KCH as a visiting scholar in 2008, Dr. Schwingel has taught more than 40 courses and appears regularly on the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent. She founded START, Student Aging Researchers in Training, which places undergraduates in labs across the college, and has mentored more than 30 START scholars in the Aging and Diversity Lab. She is the current Associate Head for Undergraduate Studies in Community Health. She also received this award in 2018, and in 2013 was awarded the Phyllis J. Hill Award for Exemplary Mentoring in the Edmund J. James Scholar Program.
AHS Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award: Teaching Assistant Allyson Box, Ph.D. student, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health Allyson is a Graduate Research Assistant in Dr. Steve Petruzzello’s Exercise Psychophysiology Lab and a Teaching Assistant for his undergraduate class on the social and psychological aspects of physical activity. She has been named to the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent every semester since the fall of 2017. Students described Allyson as “approachable,” “passionate,” “an exemplary teacher,” and “an exceptional communicator.” One said, “She encourages us to share our ideas and asks us thought-provoking questions, which has allowed me to gain confidence and develop my critical thinking skills.”
AHS Excellence in Online & Distance Teaching Professor Monika Stodolska, Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism Dr. Stodolska played an instrumental role in developing and implementing RST’s online master’s program in 2012. She created the first RST course offered online, Theories and Concepts of Leisure, which she recently revised by developing new content and engagement activities that foster meaningful student interaction, and recording more than 40 video lectures. The AHS e-Learning team regularly shares her lectures with other faculty as outstanding examples of online content. She also converted the campus-based undergraduate course on diversity in recreation, sport, and tourism into an online course that enrolled more than 450 students in the fall of 2021.
AHS Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching Award Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching Associate Professor Toni Liechty, Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism Dr. Liechty has taught courses for both the on-campus and online master’s degree programs in RST, and developed a course on legal aspects of RST that she has taught in both programs. She also teaches classes for the doctoral program. Dr. Liechty is deeply committed to diversity and takes steps not only to ensure that all students in her classes are able to make meaningful contributions, but also to make all of her students aware of the value of the diversity of perspectives. She often adjusts course syllabi to accommodate students’ various research interests.
AHS Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring Award Associate Professor Raksha Mudar, Department of Speech and Hearing Science Dr. Mudar has guided the work of three Ph.D. students and several M.A. students in the Aging and Neurocognition Lab. All three Ph.D. students published research papers under her mentorship. Her two current doctoral students have received highly competitive 2021-2022 national scholarships from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation. One also received a prestigious Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Graduate College. As the Director of Graduate Studies in SHS, Dr. Mudar ensures that more than 100 graduate students meet program milestones and provides support to faculty for graduate mentoring and advising.
Phyllis J. Hill James Scholar Award for Exemplary Mentoring Professor Steven Petruzzello, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health Dr. Petruzzello also received this award in 2018. Since that time, he has mentored almost 40 additional students enrolled in the James Scholar Program. He works with each student to help them identify their area of research interest and how best to pursue it, guides them through relevant literature reviews, and provides them with regular feedback as they complete their projects. Students describe him as enthusiastic, caring, and passionate. He has been called “one of the most impactful faculty members that I have worked with” and students greatly appreciate his commitment to their success and well-being.
Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising Amy O’Neill, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health Since joining KCH as an Academic Advisor for kinesiology in 2003, Amy has shepherded thousands of undergraduate students through their studies. In addition to her one-on-one advising duties, she teaches the introductory kinesiology course to new first-year and transfer students. She developed a kinesiology advising website to share important resources with students and sends out a weekly email message to make them aware of opportunities for involvement in the department, college, and campus. She also has played significant roles on departmental, college, and campus committees related to student registration, honors and awards, and scholarships.
AHS Academic Professional Staff Excellence Award Ann Fredricksen, Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services After starting with DRES captioning videos in 2008, Ann has become the Coordinator of DRES’s Accessible Media Services. She oversees the captioning of videos, trains and manages student workers, develops captioning and audio description standards for the campus, and creates and administers educational outreach activities related to captioning and accessibility. Since the COVID pandemic began in late March 2020, she has been responsible for the captioning of more than 1000 hours of video material. She has created Math and Science Captioning Standards and Best Practices for STEM fields and co-developed an online captioning certification course.
AHS Custom Class Staff Excellence Award Heidi Krahling, Center on Health, Aging, and Disability Heidi has been providing outstanding support to faculty, staff, and students before and during the grant submission process as CHAD’s Grant Specialist since 2018. She brings her commitment to the advancement of science, keen eye for detail, and dedication to submitting grants error free and on time to bear on each proposal, and played a critical role in the college’s success in receiving its greatest amount of external research funding ever in 2020, more than $18 million. Grant seekers appreciate that Heidi’s skills enable them to focus on the scientific content of their proposals.
AHS Staff Excellence Awards Sally Marshall, Dean’s Office Sally brings strong organizational, communication, and multitasking skills to her work as the Office Administrator in the AHS Dean’s Office. She has provided support to the Senior Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Recruitment, Advising, and Enrichment, and is the primary support person for the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. She assists with planning major events such as Ph.D. Recruitment Day and the AHS Distinguished Lecturer Series, serves as the liaison between the Associate Dean and departmental directors of undergraduate and graduate studies, and supports the Associate Dean in his role as Interim Director of the Chez Veterans Center.
Kathy Saathoff, Office of Advancement As the Office Administrator, Kathy supports the Assistant Dean for Advancement, two Major Gift Officers, and the Associate Director for External Engagement. She manages the execution of the critical gift acknowledgement process, handles multiple requests for research and reports, plans donor visits, and helps to complete donor fund agreements. Advancement personnel across campus regard Kathy as a friendly resource with deep institutional knowledge, developed during both her current position and her previous position with the University of Illinois Foundation. Colleagues describe her as “an exceptional teammate” who is always able to see the big picture.
