FAH Academic Awards Winners 2018

Best Teacher Award – Hari Venkatesan

The evidence of Prof Venkatesan’s teaching excellence was observed from a well-designed teaching portfolio that contains key components that give a clear, holistic narrative of his teaching practice. The material submitted demonstrates that he has reflected upon his pedagogical design. Course material in the sample course ENGB381 Translation for the Media are well documented. The design of assessments is closely aligned with the stated intended learning outcomes; there are also indications of how individual assignments can be cross-referenced with corresponding ILOs.

Best Instructor Award – Gao Lili

Ms. Gao has been teaching in UM for over 20 years. She is highly recognized as a dedicated and caring teacher among the students and colleagues. Ms. Gao mainly teaches beginning level of students in Portuguese Studies so she needs to put extra efforts and patience to engage students in learning the elementary Portuguese. She is a student-oriented teacher and always works closely with the students, actively responds to their needs and shares her experience in learning and career development because she believes that open dialogue and ideas exchange with students can improve both teaching and learning.

Excellence in Research Award – Antony Kunnan & Mario Wenning

During 31/7/2017 – 31/12/2018, Prof Antony Kunnan has published one single authored monograph, one book chapter and two journal articles. He has given fourteen plenary/ keynote talks worldwide and organized three conferences in UM. His citations figures, h-index and i10-index, are impressively high. Moreover, Prof Kunnan has served as editor-in-chief for an indexed academic journal and manuscript reviewer for a long list of prominent SSCI journals. All the achievements reflect his reputation as a leading scholar in the field. Prof Kunnan is an absolutely remarkable example of scholar who contributes tremendously in both Research and Service. His ability research productivity, in spite of his heavy administrative duties as Associate Dean and Acting Director of ELC for the year of 2017/2018, has been described as nothing short of miraculous.

Prof Wenning was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016 and has only recently moved from Balanced Track to Research Track. His productivity and passion for research was not limited by his track assignment and during 31/7/2017 – 31/12/2018, he published nine journal articles, an edited book and a special issue of a prominent journal. We are impressed by Prof Wenning’s wide-ranging research portfolio and the growing significance of his work internationally. Prof Wenning has been the Principal Investigator of two successful MYRG-funded research projects in 2014 & 2018, and he has delivered eleven invited talks and conference presentations worldwide in the last year. Prof Wenning stands out as a rising star in his field of research.

Excellence in Service – Xu Jie

Prof Xu has been serving at UM since 2008 and has been carrying heavy administration duties. He is a well-liked, pleasant and approachable colleague. He actively takes part in activities within the Faculty and the University, making significant contributions to our campus culture. Besides his busy administrative duties, he always voluntarily gives support to and participates in all kinds of department, faculty and university related activities as well as collegial mentorship for the junior members. Moreover, he is always happy to give assistance to different units as per the support letters from the SAO, RC and Registry. Without doubt, he is excellent in terms of internal service.

For external service, Prof Xu is affiliated to many regional and international academic organizations and services on international editorial boards of academic journals in his field. He is the President of the Linguistic Society of Macau, a member of Executive Council of International Association of Chinese Linguistics, editor-in-chief of Macao Journal of Linguistics, Associate Editor-in-chief of Chinese Linguistics, and international editoridal member of Linguistic Sciences. In addition, Prof Xu has also contributed to enhancing academic visibility and reputation of the University and the Faculty by coordinating many international conferences. All in all, Prof Xu’s performance in service is all-rounded and esteemed highly among colleagues.

Congratulations to the winners again!