President's Leadership Fund Honors Five Aztecs
Recipients of the PLF Awards for Faculty and Staff Excellence represent the broad diversity of SDSU research and community engagement programs.
What do foster youth, alumni, cell phones, biofuel research and sintering have in common? The five topics highlight the work of this year’s recipients of President's Leadership Fund Awards for Faculty and Staff Excellence.
This year's recipients
Five faculty and staff members were honored this year, including:
- Tammy R. Blackburn, associate director, SDSU Alumni Association
- John Love, professor, SDSU Department of Chemistry
- Eugene Olevsky, professor, SDSU Department of Mechanical Engineering
- Jessica Robinson, assistant director, Consensus Organizing Center, and lecturer, SDSU School of Social Work
- Mahasweta Sarkar, assistant professor, SDSU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
These five recipients were chosen by a small group of partners in the President's Leadership Fund from a qualified pool of outstanding nominees. In addition to the recognition of their contributions to SDSU, each will receive a $5,000 award with only one restriction—it must be reinvested in their important work at San Diego State.
Reinvesting awards
While Love, Olevsky and Sarkar noted that the awards would go towards their ongoing research or provide support for graduate students working in their labs, Robinson plans to use the money to support her work with local foster youth, while Blackburn will use the funds to integrate the SDSU Alumni Association lifetime membership program with the SDSU Guardian Scholars program.
“These recipients exemplify the innovation and excellence the President's Leadership Fund was created to support,” SDSU President Stephen L. Weber. “They advance our university through contributions that enrich the student experience and deepen our engagement with our community.
“With this recognition, we applaud their work in building new partnerships around the world and attracting talent and resources to our emerging urban research university.”
About the President’s Leadership Fund
The President's Leadership Fund (PLF) was established in October 2002 to provide San Diego State University with the flexible resources to respond quickly to strategic opportunities, pursue innovation and reward excellence.
Establishing the President's Leadership Fund Awards for Faculty and Staff Excellence was a natural evolution of the PLF's work to encourage and reward excellence. In its first eight years, the PLF has invested upwards of $4 million in more than 160 new or existing initiatives.
