Meet the Recipients of the 2023 Outstanding Faculty Awards
Recognizing excellence in research and teaching, the College of Engineering celebrates its faculty members with outstanding faculty awards yearly. Departments nominate faculty members who are selected to receive the honors by the college's Faculty Awards Committee.
Four faculty members will receive outstanding faculty awards at the College of Engineering Awards Celebration on May 25. Two of these faculty members are from the Department of Computer Science.
Outstanding Faculty Awards
Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award
Joël Porquet-Lupine, Computer Science
Joël Porquet-Lupine is passionate about teaching computer science, with his primary research interest in developing tools that advance computer science education. His peers in the Department of Computer Science note that he has led the charge on reshaping computer science at UC Davis due to his dedication to the topic and investment in making courses fair, accessible and inclusive to all students.
He has developed an offline interactive textbook framework, a technology-oriented podcast project, and a new seminar series on computer science education. One impactful innovation he has brought is "The Missing CS Class." This student-led course teaches computing ecosystem literacy, which aims to reduce the academia-industry gap. Porquet-Lupine is also improving the department's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts by studying, for example, the relationship between class participation and gender.
Students continuously recognize Porquet-Lupine's ability to present complex information in a clear and engaging manner, particularly for core undergraduate courses. Between 2018 and 2020, he received a teaching award from the student-led Davis Computer Science Club each year. In addition, his department honored him with the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2020.
Porquet-Lupine joined UC Davis in 2017. Before joining the university, he received his Ph.D., master's and bachelor's degrees in computer science from Sorbonne University.
Outstanding Senior Faculty Award
Kwan-Liu Ma, Computer Science
Kwan-Liu Ma's research has transformed the visualization of big data with high-performance computing, advanced computer graphics, human-computer interaction and machine learning. His work has allowed scientists to see their data with a higher level of clarity, enabling them to communicate easily and, often, to discover unseen aspects of their research.
Among the top 10 most cited visualization researchers, Ma has received many prestigious honors. He received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the National Science Foundation in 2000 and the Visualization Technical Achievement Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE, in 2013. He became a fellow of the IEEE in 2012.
Beyond academia, Ma's work on big data visualization has left an indelible mark: the e-commerce, security, manufacturing, and visualization industries have adopted several visualization codes produced by his group.
Ma earned his Ph.D., master's and bachelor's in computer science from the University of Utah before joining UC Davis in 1999. He is currently a Distinguished Professor and has previously served as the chair for the graduate group in the Department of Computer Science. He is the director of the UC Davis Center for Visualization.
Read about all four award winners in this College of Engineering announcement.