Etienne Vouga, an affiliate professor within the Division of Pc Science at The College of Texas at Austin, has acquired a 2024 Regents’ Excellent Educating Award for demonstrating extraordinary classroom efficiency and progressive educating. Vouga is one in all 12 recipients this yr from throughout the College of Texas System.
“Professor Vouga’s extraordinary dedication to his college students and their educational success is inspirational,” stated Rachel Mersey, interim government vice chairman and provost. “There isn’t a larger or higher dedication that our school members can have than to their college students. This award exemplifies the College’s dedication to educating excellence and innovation, and I’m so happy that professor Vouga has been acknowledged for his efforts.”
Vouga constantly seeks to grasp the training expertise from his college students’ views. He’s dedicated to furthering training, welcoming everybody into his programs and setting excessive expectations but additionally educating college students the associated and intangible abilities wanted for sophistication and profession success. For instance, he encourages his undergraduate college students to relearn learn how to search for sources and actually perceive and implement work, themselves.
Given since 2008, the Regents’ Excellent Educating Award mars the very best honor for educating from the UT System. It’s offered yearly to college members at every of the system’s educational and well being establishments. Every recipient receives a certificates, a medallion and $25,000 in appreciation of their constructive impression on college students and their establishments.
“Distinctive educating is on the coronary heart of our mission, and these award winners signify the very best beliefs of training,” stated UT System Board of Regents Chairman Kevin P. Eltife. “By honoring these 12 educators, we’re not solely celebrating their achievements but additionally reinforcing the UT System’s position in making ready college students to excel out and in of the classroom.”
Vouga joined UT Austin’s Faculty of Pure Sciences in 2014, after incomes his Ph.D. from Columbia College and finishing his postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard College.
His analysis focuses on the simulation of geometry and physics of skinny, elastic supplies — resembling fabric, hair and paper — as they wrinkle, fold or get wrung out. Combining his experience in pc science, utilized physics, geometry and numerical strategies, Vouga develops extra correct, sensible algorithms for simulating supplies and interactively designing objects constructed from them. Particular results studios, resembling Disney and Weta Digital, have used his work to create practical movement and simulations in films like “Tangled” and “The Hobbit.”
Vouga engages college students within the classroom via power and interactivity. His lessons are well-known for being locations the place college students can ask questions and he invitations them to take action. This impassioned dedication to the success of his college students within the classroom typically leads undergraduate and graduate college students to affix Vouga in his analysis pursuits. As a mentor, Vouga encourages mental curiosity and educational development — guiding college students on learn how to strategy and overcome issues and reassuring them when the analysis is troublesome. He hosts scholarly studying teams inside the division, gives graduate program recommendation and promotes analysis alternatives on campus.
Along with educating every semester, he’s the top coach of UT Austin’s chapter of the Worldwide Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) — a scholar group that competes in groups of three in opposition to different universities to unravel real-world issues utilizing algorithmic programming.
“Professor Vouga has earned a popularity for uplifting college students to repeatedly go deeper of their studying, whereas participating meaningfully and exploring how finest to take what they be taught out into the world,” stated David Vanden Bout, dean of the Faculty of Pure Sciences. “His respectful strategy to college students each challenges them to stretch and delve into pc graphics, whereas providing assist alongside the best way. I’m thrilled to see this well-deserved recognition of his excellent work within the classroom.”
