The Board of Governors of the multi-campus University of North Carolina has selected 17 of its most outstanding faculty to receive the 19th Annual Awards for Excellence in Teaching. Each award winner will receive a commemorative bronze medallion and a $7,500 cash prize.

The 17 recipients, representing an array of academic disciplines, were nominated by special committees on their home campuses and selected by the Board of Governors Committee on Personnel and Tenure, chaired by John C. Fennebresque of Charlotte. The awards will be presented by a member of the Board of Governors during the spring graduation ceremony on each campus.

Representing North Carolina A&T State University is Dr. Stephanie Luster-Teasley, associate professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Chemical, Biomedical and Bioengineering.

Award citations and thumbnail photos for all 17 award recipients can be found at on the University of North Carolina website.

The College of Engineering Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Series will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 9, in McNair Auditorium. Dr. Christoph Adami, professor of microbiology and molecular genetics and professor of physics and astronomy at Michigan State University, will be the keynote speaker.

Adami’s topic will be “A New Path towards Machine Intelligence.”

The Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Series brings nationally recognized leaders to the College of Engineering to illuminate topics in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields that produce innovations and advance research for the region and the world.  

“The speakers of this exciting series were selected because of the relevance of their areas of expertise to faculty, students, and professionals from multiple disciplines within North Carolina A&T State University and throughout the greater Piedmont Triad area,” said Dr. Robin N. Coger, dean. “We hope our friends, neighbors and colleagues will join us for the seminars and thus participate in the exchange of ideas that this distinguished speaker series was designed to inspire.”

An accomplished researcher, Adami pioneered the application of methods from information theory to the study of evolution and designed the “Avida” system that launched the use of digital life as a tool for investigating basic questions in evolutionary biology. He wrote the textbook “Introduction to Artificial Life” (Springer, 1998), is the recipient of NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal and was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2011.

Adami earned his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in theoretical physics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a Diploma in Physics from Bonn University (Germany).

Dr. Walter Bumphus, president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges, will be the keynote speaker for the Department of Leadership Studies’ Higher Education Leadership Lecture on Wednesday,
April 3.

The lecture, “The American Association of Community Colleges 21st Century Report: Leadership Skills Needed to Execute the Recommendations,” will be given 3–4:30 p.m. in Proctor Hall, room 160.

Bumphus has more than three decades of service in higher education that includes senior administrator, college president, system chancellor and contributions in the private educational sector. Bumphus will present the 21st Century Commission report and the leadership skills needed to execute the recommendations.

The program is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served following the lecture.

Dmitri Stockton ’86, president and CEO of GE Asset Management, will be the keynote speaker for North Carolina A&T State University’s spring commencement ceremonies Saturday, May 11, at the Greensboro Coliseum. The ceremony will begin promptly at 8:30 a.m., and all participants should remain through the recessional.

A 26-year GE veteran, Stockton is a seasoned global business leader with an extensive background in financial services who has held leadership positions in banking, asset management, commercial real estate and insurance. He is a senior vice president of GE Company and one of its Top 40 Executive Leaders serving on their Corporate Executive Council.

GE Asset Management has $120 billion in assets under management for GE’s U.S. employee pension and benefits plans and a wide range of other institutional investors, including plan sponsors, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, and endowments. In his current role, Stockton oversees an array of investment strategies managed by the firm, spanning U.S. and international equities, fixed income, real estate, private equity and hedge funds.

During his career, Stockton has received numerous recognitions and awards including his selection as one of Black Enterprise Magazine’s100 Most Powerful in Corporate America (2009) and 75 Most Powerful on Wall Street (2011). In 2012, he was chosen by Savoy Magazine as one of the Top 100 Most Influential Blacks in Corporate America.

Stockton is an inductee into the National Black College Hall of Fame and was chosen by Beta Alpha Psi Honor Society as the Business Information Professional of the Year in 2005 and the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society for the Business Achievement Award in 2007. In 2011, Stockton was honored by GE Chairman Jeff Immelt with the Chairman’s Award for driving company-wide leadership in the area of Risk Management for his efforts in repositioning the GE Capital Global Banking portfolio during the most recent financial crisis. He also has been the recipient of the N.C. A&T Alumni Excellence Award.