The 2011 Faculty Montys

Each year, the San Diego State Alumni Association recognizes outstanding faculty and alumni and honors them for their contributions to teaching, research and community service.

College of Arts and Letters
Rebecca Moore, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Classics and Humanities, received the Senate Distinguished Professor, Excellence in Teaching Award in 2010. She authored “Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple” (Praeger 2009), as well as other books and articles examining the role of Jonestown in American history. She is a member of the University Senate Faculty Affairs Committee, which she chaired from 2007-2010.

College of Business Administration
James Beatty, Ph.D., professor of information and decision systems, is an award-winning teacher, accomplished researcher and among the most diligent contributors in terms of service to the university, with extensive work on committees and taskforces. He is highly respected in his field for a record of 11 years judging the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the top performance honor that an American organization can receive.

College of Education
Laura J. Hall, Ph.D., a professor of special education, has made contributions as international program coordinator for the college and coordinator of the Moderate to Severe and Early Childhood Education Specialist Credential Programs. The author of peer-reviewed books and journal articles in the area of autism spectrum disorders, she was instrumental in the development, implementation and institutionalization of the master’s degree specialization in autism.

College of Engineering
Kee Moon, Ph.D, professor of mechanical engineering, is the first faculty member to receive a prestigious National Science Foundation grant for the establishment of an Engineering Research Center at SDSU. He will lead a research team in developing technologies that integrate robots governed by the human brain to control movement in advanced prosthetics, as well as sensor-electrode systems for reanimating paralyzed limbs.

College of Health and Human Services
Karen Emmorey, Ph.D., is a professor in the School of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and director of SDSU’s Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience. Previously a senior researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, she is one of the top linguistic researchers in the world in the area of American Sign Language (ASL) acquisition and the neural underpinnings of visual language systems.

College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts
Kathy LaMaster, Ph.D., associate dean of the college, is also professor and former interim director of exercise and nutritional sciences. Her record of excellence in teaching and scholarship, combined with her expertise in technology use in physical education, has drawn invitations to conduct teacher workshops in Abu Dhabi and Ireland. She is chair of the SDSU Senate’s University Academic and Resource Planning Committee.

College of Sciences
Microbial ecologist Forest Rohwer, Ph.D., professor of biology, has amassed an exemplary record of research, teaching and mentoring that benefits not only SDSU students, but also the greater scientific community. He has been honored with prestigious scholarly awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Canadian Society for Advanced Research and the International Society for Microbial Ecology.

Library and Information Access
Linda Salem, librarian for the College of Education, collaborates with faculty and administrators to integrate information literacy with classroom instruction. She provides reference help to graduate research projects and was recently appointed head of the reference services division. Author of a book on children’s literature, she has also chaired sessions for the Children’s Literature Society of the American Literature Association.