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In The News
May 20, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CSU Dominguez Hills Professors
Honored
For Their Achievements with Faculty Awards
(Carson, CA)—Dr. H. Leonardo
Martinez, professor of chemistry and chair of the chemistry department,
has been named California State University, Dominguez Hills’ Presidential
Outstanding Professor for 2008.
Established in 1971, the Presidential
Outstanding Professor award is presented to a full-time faculty
member at CSUDH for exemplary
achievement as a professor, scholar, mentor and community leader,
and is one of four awards presented to faculty annually in recognition
of their accomplishments. Other awards and their recipients this
year include the Lyle E. Gibson Dominguez Hills Distinguished Teacher
Award to Dr. Maria Hurtado-Ortiz, psychology; the Excellence in
Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity Award, Dr. Jerry Moore,
anthropology; and the Excellence in Service Award to Dr. Munashe
Furusa, Africana studies.
The professors will be recognized and
honored for their achievements during the Graduate Commencement
Ceremony on Thursday, May 22,
and the Undergraduate Commencement Ceremony on Friday, May 23.
For information on the commencements, visit www.csudh.edu/commencement/.
The
following are brief backgrounds on each award recipient:
Presidential
Outstanding Professor
Martinez began his career at CSU
Dominguez Hills in 1996 as an assistant professor of chemistry.
He currently chairs the Department
of Chemistry and serves as interim director of the university’s
Center for Advancement
of Diversity in Science and Mathematics,
which works to increase participation of minority students in the
sciences.
“
We are perfectly positioned because of the makeup of our student
body, so we can actually make a difference,” Martinez said
of the center. “We get more students to participate in the
sciences and send them to grad school and med school to increase
the representation of underrepresented students in those fields.
The idea is that society is made up of percentages of different
people and the workforce should be a mirror image of that distribution.”
To
further support his students’ endeavors in the sciences,
Martinez involves them in his research, including ongoing projects
on theoretical dynamics and the travel patterns of particles in
fractal structures and a new project focused on nanotubes. He has
published widely in prestigious journals including the American
Chemical Society, the Journal of Organic Chemistry, and the Journal
of Chemical Physics and has presented his own work, and work done
in collaboration with his students, at numerous conferences in
the United States, Puerto Rico and Spain.
When asked how he hopes
his students will remember him, Martinez said he aspires to be
described as “motivational” and “inspirational.”
“
If those were the words they used to describe me, I would consider
my job done,” he said. “I think those are the main
ingredients of teaching. [Students] can read the book and do the
problems, but if they are not motivated and willing and eager to
do this, it’s not going to happen.”
Martinez earned
his Bachelor of Science in chemistry at the Universidad del Valle
in Colombia and both his Master of Science and doctorate
in chemistry at the University of California, San Diego.
In 2007,
he was recognized with the CSUDH Excellence in Research, Scholarship
and Creative Activity Award.
Lyle E. Gibson Dominguez Hills Distinguished
Teacher Award
The Lyle E. Gibson Dominguez Hills Teacher Award
is named for the university’s founding vice president of
Academic Affairs and professor of geography, Dr. Lyle E. Gibson.
It was
established
in 1974 to acknowledge a faculty member who exemplifies the dedication
and skill involved in quality teaching.
A member of the faculty
in the Department of Psychology since 1999, Hurtado-Ortiz teaches
developmental psychology with an emphasis
on adolescents and older adults and conducts research related to
child care, welfare reform, affirmative action, and acculturation
and planning for college among youth of Mexican descent.
Along
with CSUDH colleague Dr. Silvia Santos, Hurtado-Ortiz is currently
working on a federally funded study of Type II diabetes
among Latino college students, examining diabetes-specific health
behavior, physical health indicators, and health-related attitudes
of that student population. They presented their findings earlier
this year at the 88th Convention of the Western Psychological Association
in Irvine.
Like many of the students at CSU Dominguez Hills,
Hurtado-Ortiz was the first in her immediate family to go to college.
In her
role as a professor, she strives not only to expand her students’ knowledge
in psychology but also mentor them in their pursuit of advanced
degrees.
“
I feel like [Dominguez Hills] is the place where I can help students
and make a difference in their lives with a little mentoring,” says
the professor. “Many of them are first-generation [students],
so they don’t have the role models or know the ins and outs
of how to get through college. They need somebody to show them...
that there are minorities out there who have made it and they can
do it too.”
Hurtado-Ortiz graduated summa cum laude with
a bachelor’s
degree in psychology from the University of California, Riverside.
She went on to earn her master’s degree and doctorate in
developmental psychology from there as well. Hurtado-Ortiz is a
member of the American Psychological Association, the Phi Beta
Kappa Honor Society, and the Society for Research in Child Development.
Excellence in Research, Scholarship and Creative
Activity Award
An associate professor of anthropology, Moore
is being honored for—as the award’s name implies—his
excellence in research, scholarship and creative activity. While
it might
flatter him to be compared to the popular movie character Indiana
Jones, he humorously admits that the average day for an archaeological
anthropologist is far less adventurous, but can be “interrupted
by pinnacles of excitement like you can’t believe.”
Moore’s
research interests include prehistoric cultural landscapes and
architecture, the origins of social complexity, and archaeology
of Andean South America and western North America.
He has written
numerous professional and scholarly articles and three books: Cultural
Landscapes in the Prehispanic Andes: Archaeologies
of Place; Architecture and Power in the Ancient Andes:
The Archaeology of Public Buildings, and Visions of Culture:
An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. He was a visiting scholar
at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles from 2001 to 2002
and has been a research associate at the UCLA Cotsen Institute
of Archaeology since 2001.
His archaeological fieldwork has been
supported by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation
for Anthropological
Research, the H. John Heinz III Foundation, and the Curtiss and
Mary Brennan Foundation.
Over the last 15 years, Moore has taken
scores of students to his two areas of research: northern Peru
and Baja California. Describing
these places as “frontiers in multiple senses,” he
says that the process of intellectual, geographical, and cultural
discovery is transformational for his students.
“
By having these experiences out of the country, you come back with
new sorts of insights about your own life, your own cultures, and
the cultures that surround you. For our students, foreign travel
is one of the building blocks of a liberal education,” he
said.
Moore earned his bachelor’s degree in anthropology
at California State College, Stanislaus, and his master’s
degree and doctorate in anthropology at the University of California,
Santa Barbara.
He joined the CSU Dominguez Hills Department of Anthropology in
1991 and has chaired the department since 2001. Moore was recognized
as CSUDH Presidential Outstanding Professor in 2003.
Excellence
in Service Award
Established in 2004—the same year as the
Excellence in Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity Award—the
Excellence in Service Award honors a faculty member who has contributed
to university
governance and development.
Award recipient Furusa came to CSU
Dominguez Hills in 2000 as a visiting professor in African literature
from the University of
Zimbabwe. The popularity of his class inspired students to petition
for him to extend his stay, and ultimately, to join the Department
of Africana studies faculty in 2001.
In the eight years he has
been on campus, Furusa has been involved in many facets of university
governance and development. He most
recently chaired the University Curriculum Committee from 2006
to 2008, and is a member of the Honors Program Advisory Committee,
the Faculty Policy Committee, and the Diversity Committee. In addition
he currently serves as a faculty mentor for the McNair
Scholars Program and for the Graduate Student Research Conference.
Since 2006 he has chaired of the Department of Africana studies,
and beginning with the fall 2008 semester, Furusa is slated to
be the chair of the Academic Senate, the faculty’s governing
body.
His committee work has not overshadowed his teaching
or scholarly responsibilities. Among his numerous articles, chapters
and papers,
Furusa co-wrote and co-edited the 2006 book The Borders in
All of Us: New Approaches to Global Diaspora Societies with his Dominguez
Hills colleagues, Dr. William Little, Dr. Selase Williams, Dr.
Irene Vasquez, and Dr. Jung-Sun Park.
The associate professor of
Africana studies, whose research specialties include African literature
and culture, critical theories, literature
and culture of the African diaspora, and women and gender in literature,
considers being able to reach students from so many different cultures
and exposing them to stories of people of African descent his personal
mission.
“
I see students being changed, in terms of their attitudes and understanding,
even in the way they begin to relate in my class after I have taught
them,” he says. “That helps me feel that I could make
a change in terms of how various cultures relate.”
After
earning a professional diploma in education at the Bondolfi Teachers
College in Zimbabwe, Furusa went on to achieve a bachelor’s
degree in English and African literature, a bachelor’s with
honors and master’s degree in English, and his doctorate
in philosophy, African literature and critical theory, all at the
University of Zimbabwe.
In 2004, he was recognized with Lyle E.
Gibson Dominguez Hills Distinguished Teacher Award.
# # #
---------------------------------------------- About
CSU Dominguez Hills -- California
State University, Dominguez Hills is a highly diverse,
urban university located in the South Bay, primarily
serving the
Los Angeles metropolitan area. The university prides itself
on its outstanding faculty and friendly, student-centered
environment.
Known for excellence in teacher education, nursing, psychology,
business administration, and digital media arts, new degree
programs include computer science, criminal justice,
recreation and leisure
studies, social work, and communication disorders. On campus
is the Home Depot Center, a multi-purpose sports complex
that hosts
world-class soccer, tennis, track and field, lacrosse, and
cycling.
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