Illinois CS professors Tandy Warnow and William Gropp were among four University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty members honored by the Office of the Provost with the 2023 Campus Awards for Excellence in Faculty Leadership.
Written by Stephanie Henry, Illinois News Bureau
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign presents Campus Awards for Excellence in Faculty Leadership each year to distinguished faculty who enrich the intellectual vitality of campus and the broader community.
The awards were presented in three categories – faculty mentoring, distinguished executive officer and outstanding faculty leadership – to four faculty members during a ceremony on campus this week.
Two of the four, Tandy Warnow and William Gropp, were professors with Illinois Computer Science. The awards and recipients, with descriptions from their nominations, are:
Tandy WarnowTandy Warnow, professor and associate head of computer science and Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering, received the Excellence in Faculty Mentoring Award. This award recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to faculty mentoring by actively assisting pre-tenure and mid-career faculty in developing their career.
Warnow’s work with faculty to develop the skills needed to manage their diverse responsibilities, including research, grant writing, teaching and student supervision. She pursues mentorship through both systemic and informal means, formally mentoring five computer sciences faculty. She regularly meets with these colleagues to review dossiers, edit proposals and advise on topics such as advising graduate students and teaching. In addition to secondary appointments in multiple departments, including bioengineering and electrical and computer engineering, she brings the same level of commitment and passion to projects such as the CS Future Faculty Fellows program (postdoctoral researchers), chairing the 2020 Grainger College of Engineering Anti- Racism Task Force and formal and informal individual mentorship.
William GroppWilliam Gropp, director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in Computer Science, received the Outstanding Faculty Leadership Award. This award recognizes a faculty member who has provided extraordinary leadership contributions across many dimensions of shared governance that advance the excellence of a unit, a college and/or the campus, and who exemplifies the campus commitment to collaborative decision-making. This award is the highest accolade honoring a faculty member whose professional service has advanced progress toward the Illinois mission.
During his time as acting, interim and, now, director of NSCA, he has guided the department through the conclusion of three major, long-term projects: Blue Waters, XSEDE, and LSST data management. In the face of these transitions, Gropp masterfully orchestrated an effort to diversify the NCSA funding portfolio. He helped build the center’s strong expertise and developed partnerships across campus, helping deploy such projects as the Delta supercomputer, Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem, Services and Support (ACCESS) and the Center for Astrophysical Surveys. He continually expands NCSA’s expertise and services into all areas of data science. He is also deeply invested in the success of the computer science department, where he has chaired and re-invigorated the advisory committee to make it an effective part of the shared governance in the department.