The Conference USA (CUSA) Faculty Achievement and Professor of the Year Award recognizes professors who demonstrate outstanding performance in teaching, research, service, or scholarly activity within their field. The award includes a $15,000 honorarium and recognition from the conference.
On June 25, UTEP Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Jorge Gardea-Torresday Ph.D., received the 2024 Professor of the Year Award.
“(It was) unbelievable when I was elected, I said ‘What?’ I discovered my group, my students, because we are the leaders,” Gardea-Torresdey said. “That was enough, but those things you don’t expect as a professor, you come here to work hard try to mentor the students, teach your classes.”
Gardea-Torresdey began his career at UTEP in the Department of Energy. He said that working for the university helped propel his career.
“(Working for UTEP is) the best decision I’ve ever made in my life because, I came to UTEP when UTEP was not the (school) that it is today, but (now) we have leadership and we got it there,” said Gardea-Torresdey.
Gardea-Torresday is a distinguished figure in environmental chemistry, known for his pioneering contributions to the research community. He has undertaken a significant role as a co-principal investigator for a National Science Foundation-funded project, which involves a collaboration with the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source at Cornell University. This project aims to develop a highly precise X-ray beamline supporting advancing agricultural and environmental research.
Gardea-Torresdey’s passion for chemical and environmental chemistry sparked in his hometown of Parral, Chihuahua. From a young age, he worked alongside his father and grandfather in Parral’s mines and learned how cyanide is used to mine gold or mercury, which he says is a very delicate process.
“I wanted to do something clean for the environment,” said Gardea-Torresdey. “I started at UTEP with phytoremediation trying to clean the environment with green methods, trying to produce coal with plants instead of using cyanide or mercury.”
Gardea-Torresdey said he primarily mentors female students and students in the Hispanic and Latino communities, because he advocates for diversity and inclusion.
“When I got the position to be chair of chemistry, I asked President Diana Natalicio, as director of the Environmental Science and Engineering Ph.D. program, ‘If you give me five faculty positions for women, I’ll take it because we don’t have women in the department’,” said Gardea-Torresdey.
Currently, about 50% of the department are women.
Gardea-Torresday, has left an indelible mark on the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry since the beginning of his career at UTEP in 1994. His significant contributions have inspired and motivated many in the field, and he is regarded as a world leader in environmental nanotechnology with over 550 publications.
Other awards and honors awarded to Gardea-Torresdey include the first UTEP Graduate Mentor Award in 2016, the Editorial Board Science of the Total Environment for three years in a row since 2016, the Great Minds in STEM Award in 2017 the University of Texas System’s STARs Retention Award in 2018.
Frida Acuna is the arts & culture editor and may be reached at [email protected].
