Engineering News Spring 2023

Every year, Santa Clara University and the School of Engineering recognize faculty who have made significant strides in teaching excellence and curriculum innovation. Faculty who meet these accomplishments may be honored with the School of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award, the University’s Brutocao Award for Teaching Excellence, or the Brutocao Award for Curriculum Innovation. These accolades are crucial in recognizing our faculty's efforts to explore innovative teaching methodologies, which ultimately result in improved learning outcomes for our students. These best practices elevate the standard of education throughout the School of Engineering, promoting a culture of excellence in teaching and learning.

School of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award

This prestigious award recognizes a full-time faculty member who has dedicated at least five years of teaching service at Santa Clara University and has received nominations from both students and faculty. The award recipient is chosen based on their consistent demonstration of excellence in teaching, exceptional teaching evaluations, reputation as a mentor to students, and notable curriculum development. In recognition of the high caliber of past recipients, we would like to highlight some of our previous honorees below.

2022-2023 Honoree

Bill Lu, Associate Professor

Bioengineering

Dr. Bill Lu is an exemplary teaching scholar who has significantly contributed to developing new bioengineering curricula. Students consistently praise him for his dedication, inspirational teaching style, and willingness to provide support. With a unique qualification of holding both an M.D. and Ph.D., he has provided invaluable guidance to pre-med students throughout the medical school application process. He is also an enthusiastic mentor who provides exclusive research opportunities to students. As a result of his mentorship, several students have co-authored peer-reviewed journal publications and became co-inventors of patents under his NIH-funded research projects. Lu's exceptional commitment to curriculum development, teaching, and mentoring students throughout their academic journey is truly remarkable.

2021 - 2022 Honoree

Laura Doyle, Lecturer

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering 

"Dr. Laura Doyle is a champion of bringing equity into the classroom." This comment is representative of all the changes Laura Doyle has made to eliminate the disadvantages that students from underrepresented engineering groups face. Her creation of labor-based grading motivated students to focus on learning and mastering skills. She was part of the founding team that created SWIRL at Santa Clara University, which allowed students who underperformed on midterms to shine. Doyle’s teaching approach empowers each student’s unique and individual learning styles and timelines. One of her colleagues noted that “Her efforts have been a model that others have copied. Dr. Doyle has challenged and inspired us to continue our own growth as educators.”

SCU Brutocao Awards

The Brutocao Family Foundation annually recognizes exceptional educators with two prestigious awards: the Brutocao Family Foundation Award for Curriculum Innovation and the Louis and Dorina Brutocao Award for Teaching Excellence. The School of Engineering has had a remarkable track record of receiving both awards in the last three years. 

Brutocao Award for Teaching Excellence:

The Louis and Dorina Brutocao Award for Teaching Excellence recognizes outstanding faculty who promote intellectual curiosity and active learning; model and foster intellectual rigor and honesty and a zest for learning; develop connections between course material and life outside the classroom; are available to students, attentive to their needs, and enjoy the teacher-student relationship. This award honors those teachers who, over a period of years, have made a real difference: those who have served as exemplars in the Santa Clara Jesuit tradition of service, who have challenged their students in ways that have forced them to look at the world afresh, who have exerted a major influence over the intellectual and moral development of their students, who have, in short, made an imprint that is still felt in some way years after graduation.

2020 Honoree 

Tonya Nilsson, Vice-Chair and Senior Lecturer

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering

Dr. Tonya Nilsson received scores of nomination letters from students and alums that describe unforgettable learning experiences. They used memorable terms like “mentor,” “gold star standard,” “inventive,” and “queen of real-world applications.” Students valued her classes, where everyone was challenged and respected. She supported students of diverse backgrounds, providing unique mentorship experiences that changed their lives. These accounts exemplify the work honored by the Brutocao Award, with one department colleague stating that Dr. Nilsson is the most talented, dedicated, and generous instructor they have ever known.

Brutocao Award for Curriculum Innovation:

The Brutocao Family Foundation Award for Curriculum Innovation recognizes faculty who have improved the quality of education at Santa Clara University through significant innovations in pedagogy or curriculum development--particularly when those innovations affect a significant number of students--and who have exhibited general excellence in teaching.

2022 Honoree

Prashanth Asuri, Associate Professor

Bioengineering

Dr. Prashanth Asuri takes an entrepreneurial and multidisciplinary approach, creating innovative courses that respond to students' needs and the Silicon Valley industry. His courses help students apply their learning to real-world contexts and build skills that prepare them to be young leaders. Industry leaders are often invited to their classrooms and have championed grants and fellowships for first-generation students. He also founded the Healthcare Innovation and Design Program, a space for students and faculty to collaborate on healthcare challenges.

2021 Honoree

Aleksandar Zecevic, Professor

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Dr. Aleksandar Zecevic has led curricular innovations in the School of Engineering for a decade by integrating science, technology, and theology. He created two popular courses: “Chaos Theory, Metamathematics, and the Limit of Knowledge: A Scientific Perspective on Religion” and “Information, Quantum Computing, and Complexity: The Beauty of Nature and the Nature of Beauty.” He also initiated an “Ethics Across the Curriculum” program with three capstone design course modules. As a result, students find his classes thought-provoking and reflective, with unexpected learning opportunities that raise profound questions about existence.