The University of Nebraska System has announced the recipients of the 2025 President’s Excellence Awards, the most prestigious honors presented to faculty and academic units across the four-campus NU System.
Each year, these awards celebrate the talent and impact of University of Nebraska faculty whose work embodies the highest ideals of a land-grant institution — excellence in teaching, research, service, innovation and engagement. Recipients have demonstrated a deep commitment to improving the lives of students, advancing knowledge, building strong communities and creating new opportunities for Nebraska and the world.
“Outstanding faculty are at the heart of a great university,” said University of Nebraska System President Jeffrey P. Gold, MD. “Their dedication to teaching, discovery, innovation and service uplifts students, grows our economy and strengthens Nebraska’s communities. These awardees are helping drive the University of Nebraska toward an extraordinary future.”
Honorees are selected by system-wide committees of their peers and community leaders. They represent a wide range of disciplines and bring to their work not only academic rigor, but also vision, creativity and a drive to make a difference. Each award includes a monetary stipend — $10,000 for individual faculty recipients and $25,000 for departmental or programmatic honorees — and reflects a sustained record of achievement and influence.
The UNMC recipients are Betsy Becker, DPT, PhD, Karoly Mirnics, MD, PhD, and Thanh Nguyen, PhD.
Awardees will be recognized during a public ceremony at the Board of Regents meeting today (Aug. 14).
Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award (OTICA): Recognizes faculty who have developed meritorious and sustained records of excellence and creativity in teaching.
Dr. Becker is a professor and director of physical therapy education and chair of the UNMC Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences in the UNMC College of Allied Health Professions. A dedicated leader in physical therapy education, Dr. Becker is known for her innovative use of educational technology to enhance teaching and learning. She also plays a key role in coordinating education across the Omaha and Kearney campuses. Her scholarship explores how faculty and students access knowledge, resources and support through their professional connections within their social network. She is a committed mentor and coach, supporting faculty development and helping early-career educators and future physical therapists shape their professional identities. Her research spans topics such as professional networks, communities of practice and women in academia.
Her contributions have been recognized through various institutional, state and national honors for teaching innovation, leadership and educational scholarship.
Faculty Intellectual Property Innovation and Commercialization Award (FIPICA): Recognizes faculty members who have developed and nurtured significant new intellectual property from concept to licensing or startup business.
Dr. Nguyen is an emergency medicine clinician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Nebraska Medicine and an assistant professor of emergency medicine at UNMC. He fell in love with emergency medicine after learning to appreciate the role emergency departments play in the overall well-being of patients from all walks of life.
His primary research interest lies in finding the nexus between technology and medicine to improve patients’ overall wellness and to end global health disparities. As a prolific inventor, Dr. Nguyen is co-founder of HemaGlobal and University Medical Devices and developer of tools like RapidSmear and MicroWash. His innovations in emergency medicine are improving health outcomes worldwide and exemplify the university’s entrepreneurial impact.
Innovation, Development and Engagement Award (IDEA): Recognizes faculty who have extended their academic expertise beyond the boundaries of the University in ways that have enriched the broader community.
Dr. Mirnics is the Hattie B. Munroe Professor and dean and director of the UNMC Munroe-Meyer Institute for Genetics and Rehabilitation at UNMC. Under his leadership, the Munroe-Meyer Institute has expanded access to services for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, especially in rural communities. Dr. Mirnics’ leadership in building a culture of community engagement has transformed lives across Nebraska and beyond. He has won numerous awards and serves on the board of directors of Special Olympic International and chairs the SOI Global Medical Advisory Committee, advising on strategic health policies for more than 5 million athletes across approximately 200 countries.
Gina Ligon, PhD, is the founder and director of the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE) and the Jack and Stephanie Koraleski Professor for Collaboration Science in the College of Business at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She collaborates closely with the National Strategic Research Institute and the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources on national security research and public safety issues for Nebraska. She has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed academic publications, and she recently testified to the United States Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on terrorist threats to the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 Olympics.
Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award (OTICA): Recognizes faculty who have developed meritorious and sustained records of excellence and creativity in teaching.
Renee McFee, DVM, PhD, serves as the Coordinator for the Professional Program in Veterinary Medicine (PPVM), a collaborative educational initiative between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Iowa State University. In this capacity, she is responsible for the program’s academic standards, admissions processes, curriculum development, student affairs, scholarships and events.
Dr. McFee also coordinates and instructs Animal Physiology I and II, guiding veterinary and graduate students in integrating foundational scientific principles with clinical applications. Her teaching is grounded in evidence-based pedagogical practices, with an emphasis on active learning and assessment techniques that promote long-term knowledge retention. She is passionate about the scholarship of teaching and learning and supports faculty development as associate leader of UNL’s Faculty-led Inquiry into Reflective and Scholarly Teaching program.
University-wide Departmental Teaching Award (UDTA): Recognizes a department with outstanding esprit de corps in its dedication to the education of students.
The Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln prepares students to serve individuals with diverse needs across the lifespan, including those with motor, sensory, communication, cognitive and learning differences and challenges. Faculty and staff in special education and communication disorders prepare future educators, speech-language pathologists and audiologists through evidence-based instruction and rigorous academic, clinical and field experiences.
The department offers academic and pre-professional training at the undergraduate level, as well as advanced graduate and doctoral education, including both professional and research-focused pathways. The department places strong emphasis on applied and basic research, innovative instruction and interdisciplinary collaboration that directly inform clinical work, student learning and high-quality personnel preparation across Nebraska and the nation.
Innovations in Student Success Award (ISSA): Recognizes specific and successful innovations designed to improve retention and graduation rates among students that the program serves in a major, within a school, within a college, or throughout a campus.
For more than 50 years, the Goodrich Scholarship Program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha has offered an opportunity for any Nebraskan, from anywhere in the state, who has academic merit and financial need to earn a college degree.
In addition to providing financial aid in the form of tuition and general fees, Goodrich includes a complementary core curriculum coupled with academic and non-academic support services to create a high-impact learning community that has demonstrated remarkable success, continually innovating to best serve students.
The current graduation rate for the Goodrich program is 85%. Since inception, over 3,800 Nebraskans have earned the Goodrich scholarship, with 80% of Goodrich graduates staying in Nebraska after graduation.
Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award (ORCA): Recognizes faculty members who have conducted outstanding research or creative activity of national or international significance.
Timothy Schaffert is the Adele Hall Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies, the Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner, and the Director of Creative Writing in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Department of English.
He is the author of seven novels, including a trilogy about war and culture, “The Swan Gondola,” set at a world’s fair in Omaha during the Spanish-American War; “The Perfume Thief,” set during the occupation of Paris; and the national bestseller “The Titanic Survivors Book Club,” set in a Paris bookshop during WWI.
His novels have been noted as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, an Oprah Book of the Week and an LA Times Best Book of Summer, among other distinctions, and have been translated into multiple languages, including French and Italian.
Jay Storz, PhD, is the Willa Cather Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research in evolutionary biology centers on questions about physiological mechanisms of adaptation to extreme environments. In particular, a main goal of his research is to discover how high-elevation animals have evolved to survive and function in low-oxygen conditions. Dr. Storz organizes and leads mountaineering expeditions in the Andes of South America to survey the elevational limits of animal life, and he coordinates a large network of collaborators at research institutes in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru.
His research has been continuously funded by the NIH and NSF since joining the faculty at UNL. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Geographic Explorer, an honorary professor of Zoophysiology at Aarhus University, Denmark and was a Fulbright Fellow at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.