Outstanding Faculty Award

The FCSM Outstanding Faculty Award recognizes faculty for extraordinary overall excellence.  Past winners have demonstrated multiple accomplishments as a productive scholar, dedicated teacher and mentor, and exemplary colleague.

The recipient of this year’s Outstanding Faculty Award joined Towson University in 2011. During this time, the awardee excelled in all areas of his profession, including teaching, scholarship, service, mentorship, and outreach.

This faculty member has taught a wide variety of courses in his field, from an introductory undergraduate-level core course to Master’s level courses.  He has mentored or is currently mentoring five graduate students and has served on the thesis committee of nine other students.  In all, this faculty member has supervised over 20 undergraduate research students and has put a lot of work into organizing departmental lab spaces, writing and editing laboratory exercises, planning and executing class field trips and field-work with research students, as well as supervising part time faculty and lecturers.  Our awardee has been described by a colleague in his department, as being “passionate about his field” and willing “to prepare future geo- and environmental scientists to go into the world ready to contribute meaningfully to their occupation or future studies.”  Student comments have indicated that our recipient is “a knowledgeable, well-prepared, and an effective instructor”.

With respect to scholarship, this faculty member’s research is interdisciplinary in nature and spans several different fields of study.  His research brings scientific research to bear on real world problems.  Currently, this faculty member has published 13 publications, some of which have included undergraduate and graduate student co-authors, 32 invited seminars, and over 70 conference presentations since arriving to TU. This faculty member has served as PI on numerous external grants from agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, the United States Geological Survey, and Chesapeake Bay Trust totaling nearly $500,000.  He has been Co-PI on several other grants involving both internal and external collaborators and has secured funding from several internal sources, as well.  Our recipient was honored in 2012, when he was selected as a recipient of the Towson Academy of Scholars and has served as a Jess and Mildred Fisher Endowed Chair in the Biological and Physical Sciences from 2013‑2016.

This faculty member’s service record is remarkable.  He helped to lead the 2014 Geosciences program review. In addition, he had served as the primary faculty mentor for three new departmental faculty members.  He has chaired the PTRM Executive Committee for three years, served on four faculty search committees, and co-chaired one of them.  Through this faculty member’s NSF Career grant, he/she, as well as other faculty members in the department, have strengthened the geosciences program, grown the number of majors, devised articulation agreements, participated in recruiting efforts with local community colleges, and developed online advising tools for students. In this faculty member’s spare time, this faculty member serves his profession as an Associate Editor for a leading journal in his field, and as a referee for many journals and funding agencies, such as NSF and NASA.  In addition, our recipient organized two sessions for two professional meetings and served on three regional governmental boards related to his discipline.                       

It is my great pleasure to present the 2019 Outstanding Faculty Award to Dr. Joel Moore from the Department of Physics, Astronomy, and Geosciences.

(As presented by Associate Dean Vonnie Shields at the Fisher College of Science and Mathematics Forum on December 5, 2019.)