Teaching Excellence Awards winners announced

Congratulations to three experienced academics from the Computing Laboratory who have been recognised in the 2010 Teaching Award Scheme. Gavin Lowe, Stephen Pulman and Irina Voiculescu have each won individual awards of £1000.

The Teaching Awards are intended for the public acknowledgement of excellence in teaching and learning and can be made either to individuals or to teams.

• Professor Gavin Lowe, Professor of Computer Science and former Director of Teaching, is being recognized for the significant contribution he has made to the department, including the development of the new Concurrent Programming course which has received excellent feedback; and the development of a new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy.
  
• Professor Stephen Pulman, Professor of Computational Linguistics, is being recognized for his consistently excellent teaching as judged by student feedback and the popularity of the Computational Linguistics course, as well as his many valuable contributions to the department, including the supervision of a large number of DPhil students and MSc student projects.
  
• Dr Irina Voiculescu, Departmental Lecturer in the Computing Laboratory, is being recognized for designing and teaching the new undergraduate course in Geometric Modelling, which has received excellent feedback, as well as many other significant contributions to the department which include designing training material for class teaching and regular participation in access events.    

Each year the University makes awards to staff for outstanding contributions to teaching, the organization of teaching, and in the support of student learning. The awards particularly recognize excellence in learning support, the use of particularly effective and innovative methods and materials.  The winners were selected by a panel of judges after nominations were received from OUCL staff and students.

Bill Roscoe, Director of the Computing Laboratory said: “Teaching Awards serve to highlight innovation and dedication which can otherwise go unnoticed. Gavin, Stephen and Irina all regularly make outstanding contributions to the department’s teaching and we are delighted that this has been publically recognized.   The engagement from staff and students in this process was immensely positive: it was particularly pleasing to see the enthusiastic support of a number of lecturers and tutors from their students.  It is a shame that we were limited to three awards this year."

An award ceremony for all winners will be held in Michaelmas Term 2010.