Dr. Giegengack: Davidson Kennedy Professor
Dr. Robert F. Giegengack, Jr., professor of earth
and environmental science, has been named the Davidson Kennedy
Professor in the College, SAS Dean Samuel Preston announced.
Dr. Giegengack has
pioneered curricular innovation at Penn for three and
a half decades, initiating successful
developments in both the undergraduate and graduate curricula.
He introduced the undergraduate major in environmental
studies in 1972 to educate Penn students to address contemporary
problems of environmental analysis and management. He
continues to shape the course of graduate education as
faculty director of the Master of Environmental Studies
(MES) program and as a member of several graduate groups
in SAS and in the School of Design. He also serves
as director of several field courses that his department
operates each summer at the Yellowstone-Bighorn Research
Association in Montana.
In addition to teaching courses in geology and environmental
science in SAS, Dr. Giegengack has taught programs in
the School of Design, in the Wharton division of Executive
Education, and in the new Master of Public Health program
in the School of Medicine.
Widely known for his
commitment to teaching excellence, he has received
Penn's most prestigious awards recognizing
exemplary teaching, including a CGS Award for Distinguished
Teaching, Friars Senior Society Teaching Award, Ira Abrams
Award for Distinguished Teaching, Lindback Award for
Distinguished Teaching, and, most recently, a Dean's
Award for Innovation in Teaching. Dr. Giegengack has
served as a mentor for over 1,000 undergraduate and graduate
students, post-doctoral research associates, and young
faculty.
Dr. Giegengack has
conducted field investigations on every continent except
Australia, including his recent
work exploring the history of climate change in the Sahara
and the role of scarce water resources in maintaining
political tension in the Middle East. Closer to home,
he has focused on environmental problems in West Philadelphia
by developing a series of academically-based community-service
courses, which undertake to reduce exposure to environmental
lead among young children in area communities, to reduce
tobacco use among pre-adolescent children in Philadelphia,
and to reduce exposure to environmental asthma triggers
in the homes of Philadelphia children. Dr. Giegengack's
research has been published in scholarly publications
ranging from Science, Nature, Geology,
and the International Journal of Climatology to
the American Association of Higher Education's environmental
studies series Service Learning in the Disciplines.
He holds a B.A. and
Ph.D. from Yale University and an M.S. from the University
of Colorado.
The Davidson Kennedy Professorship was established
by the bequest of Josephine Rankin Kennedy in memory
of her late husband. This professorship was first awarded
in 1995 and supports a distinguished faculty member who
displays excellence in teaching, innovation in curriculum
development, service to students, and first-rate scholarship. |