The Rising Star Awards recognize faculty for their commitment to ongoing educational improvements and excellence. Rising Star faculty participate in professional development of teaching activities through the Center for Teaching Excellence. Applications are currently closed. Please visit the Rising Star Requirements page to learn more and apply.

2024 Recipients

A photo of Cliff Haynes.

Cliff Haynes, Ph.D. | Clinical Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator | School of Human Development and Organizational Studies in Education | College of Education 

 Dr. Cliff Haynes is a Clinical Associate Professor in Student Personnel in Higher Education. He teaches courses related to historical and contemporary issues in student affairs administration and the use of qualitative research methods in higher education administration research. While he occasionally teaches face-to-face courses, Cliff specializes in teaching online in both synchronous and asynchronous modalities. Cliff has completed many of the certificates offered by the Center for Teaching Excellence and the Center for Instructional Technology & Training, which have provided him the opportunity to learn and utilize different pedagogical approaches to engage students. He is currently focusing on research within the realm of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) in student affairs graduate preparation programs. 

 

A photo of Luis Mejia Puig

 

Luis Mejia-Puig, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor | Department of Interior Design 

I hold the position of Assistant Professor in Interior Design at UF’s College of Design, Construction, and Planning, drawing on over 15 years of experience in design education. My expertise lies in digital and emerging technologies, driving my research towards the creation of instructional materials and pedagogical strategies to elevate design education. Despite my relatively brief research career, I have successfully published in esteemed journals such as the Journal of Interior Design, the Journal of Educational Technology Systems, and the International Journal of Technology and Design Education. Actively participating in conferences organized by the Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) and Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA), I contribute regularly to the academic discourse in my field. At UF, I lead the dc(square) Lab, a hub for research and teaching in Digital Design, Creativity, and Cognition. Equipped with cutting-edge virtual reality devices and physiological instruments like skin conductivity monitors, heart rate monitors, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy, the lab is at the forefront of innovative exploration.

Active learning serves as the cornerstone of my teaching philosophy. To me, active learning entails the educator facilitating the learning journey through reflection and analysis, while students actively participate in this process with responsibility. I advocate for incorporating pre-class, in-class, and post-class requirements to effectively engage students. It is imperative for instructors to employ innovative and diverse strategies that resonate with students' interests and leave a lasting impact on their learning experiences. Given the tech-savvy nature of today's learners, leveraging technology for collaborative tasks has yielded promising outcomes. Additionally, gamification emerges as an effective approach to capture students' attention and sustain their engagement throughout the learning process.

A photo of Dr. Amy Parziale.

Dr. Amy Parziale | Instructional Assistant Professor  

Dr. Parziale teaches professional writing and communication in the Management Communication Center.  Her 15+ years of experience has ranged from teaching writing and humanities at Rollins College and Tulane University to working in nonprofit administration and business ethics education.  Her scholarship reflects this diversity of interests. Dr. Parziale enjoys connecting with her students to find passions they can bring to their writing and presentations. 

 

 

 

 

 

2023 Recipients

A photo of Erika Brooke.Erika Brooke, Ph.D

Associate Instructional Professor
Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law

Dr. Erika Brooke is an Associate Instructional Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law. Erika teaches a variety of undergraduate courses in Criminology. She focuses on incorporating experiential learning opportunities and universal design for learning components within her courses that give students hands-on experience exploring the criminal justice system.
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A photo of Ryan Z. Good.Ryan Z. Good, Ph.D

Instructional Assistant Professor
School of Natural Resources and Environment
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

Dr. Ryan Z. Good is an Instructional Assistant Professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Dr. Good’s experience in both environmental and economic research is complemented by robust geospatial expertise, allowing him to infuse his teaching with a variety of data sources to address complex, cross-scalar questions about the relationships between human activity and environmental change. His courses have a distinct international focus, and as co-leader of the Sustainable Development Goals in the Classroom Faculty Learning Community, he works to help the broader UF faculty build international content in classrooms across campus. Dr. Good teaches a variety of courses in environmental science and serves as lead instructor for the SNRE’s introductory general education course.
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A photo of Megan Mocko. Megan Mocko

Lecturer
Information Systems and Office Management
Warrington College of Business

Megan Mocko is a lecturer at the Warrington College of Business. She teaches statistics to undergraduate and graduate students. Before that, she rose through the ranks from lecturer to senior lecturer and master lecturer in the Department of Statistics in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences also at UF. Megan has taught statistics in multiple formats: face-to-face, hybrid, and completely online. In addition to her teaching, Megan’s involvement in statistics education led to her work as co-chair on the 2016 GAISE (Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education) report. The American Statistical Association endorsed the revised 2016 GAISE report. Megan was also program chair for the eCOTS (electronic Conference on Teaching Statistics) in 2022 and 2020.  In the Fall of 2022, she began her doctorial journey in the Ed.D. program for Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Educational Technology at the UF College of Education. She is interested in engaging everyone in the classroom using educational technology, learning analytics, and using virtual exchange to promote communication about data across international boundaries.
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2022 Recipients

Harrison HoveHarrison Hove

Lecturer and Associate Chair
Department of Journalism
College of Journalism and Communications

Harrison Hove is a Lecturer and Associate Chair in Journalism at the University of Florida. He was named the 2020-2021 University of Florida Undergraduate Teacher of the Year. He teaches courses focused on broadcast journalism. Harrison also produces special projects with student journalists for WUFT-TV. Since 2018, his students have earned national recognition from Hearst Journalism Awards, RTDNA, BEA, SPJ, and NBS. Before arriving at UF, Hove spent more than a decade in local television news serving in roles as news anchor, reporter, and meteorologist. Hove has earned 7 regional Emmys and 21 nominations for his work.
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Lauren WeisbergLauren Weisberg

Doctoral Student
School of Teaching and Learning
College of Education

Lauren Weisberg teaches educational technology courses for preservice teachers. She restructured the curriculum to promote digital equity by modeling transformative technology integration instructional practices grounded in theory. Lauren engages her students in hands-on exploration and artifact creation with various digital tools, and prioritizes collaboration, choice, and inquiry. Through teaching and research, Lauren is dedicated to preparing the next generation of teachers to enter the field with equity mindsets, motivation to disrupt the status quo, and a commitment towards meaningful change.
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Rachel YohoRachel Yoho, CDP, Ph.D

MHS Program Director; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Chair for PHHP; Clinical Assistant Professor
Department of Environmental & Global Health
College of Public Health and Health Professions

Dr. Rachel Yoho is an educational program director, the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) chair for PHHP, and an instructional faculty member. She has specific interests in DEI in education and the workplace, climate change, and communication. She is honored to receive this award acknowledging her dedication to innovative educational practices and to recognize her efforts to develop and launch an experiential DEI education program for UF employees.
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2021 Recipients

Brantlee Spakes-RichterBrantlee Spakes-Richter, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Department of Plant Pathology
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

Dr. Spakes Richter is an Assistant Professor in Plant Pathology with an 80% teaching appointment. She teaches a balance of majors and non-majors, online and in-person, and freshman through graduate-level courses, always striving to elucidate for students the interconnections of scientific and humanities concepts, and the impacts of those connections in the Real World. A firm believer in continuous improvement, Brantlee has served as a “beta tester” for many of UF’s new teaching tools, and has particular interest in building courses and curricula that help students build themselves as professionals and lifelong learners.
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Diba ManiDiba Mani, Ph.D.

Lecturer
Department of Applied Physiology & Kinesiology
College of Health & Human Performance

Diba teaches small- and large-enrollment undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in-person, hybrid, and fully online. This broad range of course formats require Diba to incorporate different types of activities in her classroom to provide her students with the most effective and efficient methods of learning. Amid the changes in higher education due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Diba has engaged in many workshops and seminars offered by the Center for Teaching Excellence and the Center for Instructional Technology & Training, which have given her an opportunity to learn and incorporate different teaching techniques and opportunities for her students.
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Erika BrookeErika Brooke, Ph.D.

Lecturer
Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Dr. Erika Brooke focuses on providing hands-on experience with the justice system through creative, innovative, and meaningful assessments that build cultural competence. Utilizing strategies based in technology and globalization, she successfully implemented a virtual exchange (VE) project that facilitated bi-weekly students discussions with a partner class in Ecuador comparing justice systems. She plans to extend the VE project concept to another class via virtual guest lectures with corrections experts around the world.
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Harrison HoveHarrison Hove

Lecturer
Department of Journalism
College of Journalism and Communications

Harrison Hove teaches broadcast journalism courses where his students practice knowledge at the highest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy: creating. Harrison oversees student content creation from timed writings to daily television reporting and special projects. Working to build classroom community virtually, Harrison has restructured an online broadcast writing course with themes of interactivity and active learning. He also successfully internationalized the curriculum in his TV news reporting course, encouraging students to highlight stories in marginalized and internationalized communities.
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Megan Mocko

Lecturer
Department of Information Systems and Operations Management
Warrington College of Business

Megan Mocko is a lecturer at Warrington College of Business. She teaches statistics to undergraduate and graduate students in the college. She is interested in engaging everyone in the classroom. Previously, she taught statistics in the Department of Statistics. In addition to her teaching, Megan’s involvement in statistics education led to her work as co-chair on the recently updated 2016 GAISE Guidelines report. The American Statistical Association endorsed the revised 2016 GAISE report along with the original report released in 2005.
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Mengyu LiMengyu (May) Li, Ph.D.

Lecturer
Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering
College of Engineering

Dr. Mengyu Li teaches numerous undergraduate and graduate ISE courses that are related to supply chain management/modeling and systems architecture/design. She enjoys advancing her teaching skills by implementing novel teaching methods in her courses to improve the learning experiences for students. Mengyu takes every opportunity available to learn about how to utilize technology in her courses to address the needs of diverse learners, for both face-to-face and online teaching. She also challenges students with activities that require group efforts and communication to enhance the sense of learning community.
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Misti SharpMisti Sharp, Ph.D

Lecturer
Food and Resource Economics Department
Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences

Misti Sharp joined the Food and Resource Economics Department at the University of Florida in fall of 2016 as a lecturer with a 100% teaching appointment. She teaches economically and quantitatively focused courses and has had the opportunity to teach students in Germany, in the US, online, and in a hybrid flexible format. She believes that the best learning is achieved when students can engage with the material in a variety of ways. This has led her to develop classroom experiments for students to experience economic theories firsthand and develop application projects using real-world data for applied data analysis. Previous students describe her classes as challenging but rewarding due to the emphasis on critical thinking and application.
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Rachel SlivonRachel Slivon, Ph.D

Lecturer
Management Communication Center
Warrington College of Business

Dr. Rachel Slivon is a Lecturer in the Management Communication Center. She is always looking for ways to engage her students through active learning and innovative activities. Her courses often include experiential learning opportunities so students can put their communication skills and strategic business skills into practice as they work with local community partners on specific projects.
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Rachel YohoRachel Yoho, Ph.D

Clinical Assistant Professor
Department of Environmental & Global Health
College of Public Health and Health Professions

Dr. Rachel Yoho teaches environmental health and global public health courses. She developed and teaches a new course, “Climate Change, the Environment, and the Future of Public Health.” Dr. Yoho is strongly committed to helping students develop their communication skills, particularly to align their communication strategies with the target audience, whether technical or non-technical. She is also invested in diversity, equity, and inclusion research and engagement in the classroom and the workplace.
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Samuel MartinsSamuel Martins, Ph.D

Assistant Professor
Department of Plant Pathology
College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

Dr. Samuel Martins is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology. Martins emulates the Japanese philosophy “Kai Zen,” which means “continuous improvement,”. He supports an open classroom environment, where students are encouraged to ask questions and make mistakes. He enjoys using different active learning approaches, such as the jigsaw technique, think-pair-share, online real-time polls, as well as collaborative projects, which allow students to learn also from each other. He plans to incorporate virtual exchange into his class with people from different countries as a way to increase students’ intercultural skills in a global perspective.
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2020 Recipients

Amber EmanuelAmber Emanuel, Ph.D.

Lecturer
Department of Health Education & Behavior
College of Health & Human Performance

Dr. Amber Emanuel is a Lecturer in the Department of Health Education & Behavior. She enjoys learning about and implementing universal design learning in her courses, to help improve teaching and learning for all types of students. Amber enjoys learning about how to utilize technology in teaching, especially for online courses. She likes to have students read and analyze current health issues, to help students improve their scientific and health literacy skills, while understanding local, national, and international health problems.
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Crystal MarullCrystal Marull, Ph.D.

Lecturer
Spanish & Portuguese Studies
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Dr. Crystal Marull became the Coordinator of the Online Spanish Program in 2017. She adopts an innovative approach that incorporates telecollaborative virtual exchanges to facilitate student conversations with native speakers located across the Spanish-speaking world. These personal exchanges are crucial to engaging traditional and non-traditional learners by providing them with a safe space to navigate the process of discovery and to find meaning for their learning. Her courses have received local and national recognition. She is actively engaged with the CTE as she strives to continue her own process of discovery and pedagogical development.
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Diba ManiDiba Mani, Ph.D.

Lecturer
Department of Applied Physiology & Kinesiology
College of Health & Human Performance

The courses Dr. Diba Mani teaches are typically large enrollment and physiology-based, so she frequently implements learning response systems during lectures and “supplemental learning experiences”, which include virtual simulations, kinesthetic demonstrations, and interactive worksheets. Diba’s most recent endeavor in the classroom has been the successful internationalization of her upper division Neuromuscular Aspects of Exercise course, which comprises student group presentations on peer-reviewed articles and virtual interviews with researchers from around the globe.
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Erika BrookeErika Brooke, Ph.D.

Lecturer
Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law
College of Health & Human Performance

Dr. Erika Brooke is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law. Erika focuses on integrating experiential learning opportunities and career readiness components into each one of her classes to give her students hands-on experience with the justice system. She plans to incorporate a virtual exchange project into the class as a way for students to further hone their intercultural competence and communication skills. Over the course of the semester, her students will collaborate with students in Columbia on a variety of interactive assessments that tap into issues related to the justice system.
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Frederick KatesFrederick Kates, Ph.D., MBA

Clinical Assistant Professor
Health Services Research, Management & Policy
College of Public Health and Health Professions

Dr. Kates serves as a Clinical Assistant Professor for Health Services Research, Management & Policy Department in the College of Public Health and Health Professions. Rick is a dedicated educator who strives to make a difference in the lives of the students he teaches. He created a new course called Health Informatics & Emerging Healthcare Technologies, which is open to students outside his college to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and entrepreneurship. He is currently working on a national certification component where students have an opportunity to take the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society certification. This opportunity would help students to be more employable in the job market as well as promote UF as a forerunner in developing future healthcare leaders.
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Ginny GreenwayGinny Greenway, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Researcher
Entomology & Nematology Department
Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences

Dr. Ginny Greenway focuses on fusing research with teaching via Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences. In these courses, students gain authentic research experience and she prioritizes an active learning and team-based approach to encourage engagement and investment in the scientific process. She also aims to include global perspectives through virtual exchange activities with international researchers to offer students a broader perspective on what it means to be a scientist. Alongside this, Ginny has been coordinating the roll-out of CUREs across campus with the Center for Undergraduate Research.
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John Mendoza-GarciaJohn Mendoza-Garcia, Ph.D.

Lecturer
Department of Engineering Education
College of Engineering

John Mendoza Garcia is a Lecturer in the Department of Engineering Education in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. He received his Ph.D. in Engineering Education at Purdue University and has a Master's and a Bachelor's in Systems and Computing Engineering from Universidad de Los Andes, and Universidad Nacional de Colombia respectively, both top Colombian Universities. John has taught face-to-face (lately flipped classroom style) and online. His courses have ranged from 10 to almost 600 students. He always looks for ways to connect with students and look into research on the domain knowledge to develop ways to facilitate students’ learning. He also encourages students to do their best while he tries to understand students’ struggles with the content or with personal situations that impact their learning. Regarding research, he investigates the learning of professional skills like problem-solving, systems thinking, design thinking, and computational thinking.
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2019 Recipients

Carolyn HansonCarolyn Hanson, Ph.D.

Clinical Assistant Professor
Department of Occupational Therapy
College of Public Health and Health Professions

Dr. Carolyn Hanson is a Clinical Assistant Professor who returned to the Department of OT in 2018. Carolyn believes that teaching is more than conveying ideas and demystifying difficult concepts. She makes learning a personal experience for her students by engaging them in team activities. In the fall of 2018, Carolyn discovered the Passport to Teaching program and was excited to find a wide variety of topics being offered in a workshop/lecture series. She was able to choose topics that appealed to her. Carolyn now plans to participate in the Passport program as one of her annual goals as it is a measurable outcome of engagement.
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Diba ManiDiba Mani, Ph.D.

Lecturer
Department of Applied Physiology & Kinesiology
College of Health & Human Performance

Dr. Diba Mani is a lecturer in the department of Applied Physiology & Kinesiology. Diba has taught classes ranging in size. She values implementing analogies and student engagement to hone in on concepts discussed in lecture material. Diba's course design puts emphasis on recognizing the importance of translating the topics discussed in class to "real life" (#IRL), be it by applying concepts to career and future educational interests, physical activity (sport) engagement, or healthcare experiences. Diba prioritizes the expansion of student interaction through active learning, having students read, evaluate, discuss, and present scientific articles to their peers, improving their own professional development concurrent to applying course lecture content. Diba also emphasizes the use of analogies to cater to different learning styles and background knowledge students may come into her class with.
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Ferol CarytsasFerol Carytsas

Lecturer
Center for Arts in Medicine
College of the Arts

Ferol joined the faculty of the Center for Arts in Medicine in August 2018. She is a lecturer and the Undergraduate Advisor with the UF Center for Arts in Medicine. Her passion for education stems from her own teachers and her belief that effective teaching is about taking the time to build relationships and establishing an environment where students feel valued and appreciated. Ferol began teaching the undergraduate course, Music and Health, in Fall 2017. Music and Health was runner-up winner for the UFIT Exceptional Course Development award, and the course received one of the UF International Center’s Internationalizing the Curriculum grants.
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Roxane CocheRoxane Coche, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Sports Media and Communication
College of Journalism and Communications

Dr. Roxane Coche was an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Memphis, teaching undergraduate and graduate students in broadcast, sports journalism and entrepreneurial media before coming to UF in 2018. She has developed a variety of exercises and activities to help students understand (and acquire) the many skills necessary to make it in today’s media world. Next semester, she will develop a standard-based grading rubric because it creates an environment that is much closer to the professional industry. Roxane and her colleague Eric Esterline won a $6,000 Internationalizing the Curriculum grant to develop the course, which will be offered for the first time in Spring 2020. The course will include a virtual exchange component, which means that students will collaborate with foreign students during a five-week module.
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Sujata KrishnaSujata Krishna, Ph.D.

Lecturer
Department of Physics
College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

Dr. Sujata Krishna joined the University of Florida in Fall 2018 and enjoys interacting with students inside and outside class. She has had the opportunity to teach a variety of classes such as large courses in a traditional auditorium, smaller classes, online lecture and lab courses. Sujata likes to engage students in classroom conversations and encourages students to participate, even when they might only have an educated guess. Student participation keeps the learning active and brings to light any misconceptions. She keeps her course content exciting and current by including hot-off-the-press physics in a simplified way.
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