Awards and Honors

April 3, 2024

One of the nation’s top teaching awards has gone to Professor Jay Banner. Awarded by Baylor University, the Robert Foster Cherry Award is designed to recognize extraordinary university or college teachers who have made a positive, long-lasting impact on their students. Banner’s teaching interests are in sustainability, environmental science, geochemistry and environmental justice. He is the director of UT’s Environmental Science Institute and the founder of the public lecture series “Hot Science – Cool Talks.” As part of the award, Banner will be teaching in residence at Baylor during the 2025 spring semester.

Professor Peter Flemings is a 2024 recipient of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Robert R. Berg Outstanding Research Award. The award recognizes a singular achievement in petroleum geosciences research. Flemings is known for his foundational work on gas hydrate systems, including linking stratigraphic evolution with fluid flow in sedimentary basins to predict subsurface pressures, trap integrity, fluid venting and slope stability. Learn more about his hydrate research on page 13.

Research Professor Kitty Milliken is the 2023 recipient of the Sidney Powers Memorial Award, the highest honor bestowed by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Milliken is the 76th person — and first woman — to receive the award, which was established in 1945. The award honors distinguished and outstanding contributions to petroleum geology. Milliken is known across the oil and gas industry for her work in sedimentary geology and the evolution of rock properties in the subsurface and how they influence energy production.

Associate Professor Daniella Rempe has received a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation. Rempe is using the funding to expand a monitoring network for critical zone sites throughout the semi-arid western United States to explore the links between field measurements and satellite data. The critical zone is located just below the Earth’s surface where tree roots grow and surface water seeps into weathered bedrock. Rempe is the third member of the Jackson School of Geosciences hydrogeological faculty to receive this award, following Bayani Cardenas in 2010 and Ashley Matheny in 2021. CAREER awards provide five years of support to scientists who lead advances in their academic institution and serve as role models in both research and education.

Three Jackson School of Geosciences doctoral students received a January 2024 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award from the National Association of Geoscience Teachers. The three students — Travis Stone, Sinjini Sinha and Eric Hiatt — were among 14 teaching assistants honored by the organization, which releases a list of awardees each January and June. Students are selected based on nominations from people familiar with their teaching experience and outcomes. Hiatt taught “Solid Earth Processes” (GEO 416E), and Sinha and Stone taught “Life Through Time” (GEO 405).