The Faculty of Environment celebrates our world-class faculty members who excel at innovative and ground-breaking research. They are award-winning writers of books, articles in prestigious academic journals and electronic communications. They also excel at teaching. We include award winners below.

Faculty of Environment Dean’s Award of Excellence in Teaching

The Faculty of Environment Dean’s Award of Excellence in Teaching was created in 2019 to highlight outstanding accomplishments of faculty members. Given annually, the recipients are selected based on nominations submitted by faculty, administrators, students or staff. The awards are made on the basis of continuing excellence in teaching with a focus on the immediately-preceding two years.

2022 Awardees

Tara Holland

Tara Holland is the recipient of the 2022 Dean’s Award of Excellence in Teaching for her extraordinary course design, classroom instruction and curriculum development, and innovative teaching methods. Holland has been teaching 6 different lower division courses a year in multiple formats including face-to-face, online, hybrid, and remote while supervising 22 teaching assistants.

Holland has also developed multiple new courses and was instrumental in the creation of the Climate Change and Society Minor. Her work was recently recognized with an Amundsen Fellowship — an award granted to those who display an interest and commitment to the investigation of teaching and learning through the successful conduct of at least one Institute for the Study of Teaching and Learning in the Disciplines (ISTLD)-funded grant and through other activities within their departments and faculties.

Robert Muir is the recipient of the 2022 Dean’s Award of Excellence in Teaching for his exceptional course design, curriculum development, classroom instruction and teaching practices.

Muir is a senior lecturer in the Department of Archaeology who has been teaching seven lower division courses a year with some of the courses having close to 300 students enrolled. Muir has shown a dedication to teaching both lab and field-based upper-division courses while building relationships with local First Nations. Muir has also been instrumental in developing new courses such as ARCH 271, and redesigned others such as ARCH 376, and has chaired the undergraduate curriculum for six years. In addition, Muir has been developing innovative teaching practices including shifting some courses to online delivery preceding the pandemic.

2020 Awardees:

David Maxwell

David Maxwell is a faculty member in the Department of Archaeology, with his primary field of interest being faunal analysis of vertebrates. David has studied tens of thousands of bones from various sites in North America during his research. David is a familiar face to students, teaching 16 courses and acting as CODE coordinator for 10 others, since 2018.

Scott Harrison

Scott Harrison is a senior lecturer in the School of Resource & Environmental Management. Scott is interested in applying the concepts of ecological resilience and Adaptive Management to improve the sustainable use of natural resources. Scott has taught almost 500 students over 13 REM courses since 2018, developing 2 new courses along the way.

2019 Excellence in Teaching Awardees:

Duncan Knowler

Duncan Knowler, is a faculty member in the School of Resource and Environmental Management recognized for his classroom teaching and high-impact contributions to curriculum development in REM. His contributions to classroom teaching and especially curriculum development have helped to position both REM and the Faculty of Environment for strong growth in quantity and quality of education. Duncan’s research focuses on environmental influences in bioeconomic modeling of natural populations, economics of natural resource management, incentives for biodiversity conservation, and more.

Suzana Dragicevic

Suzana Dragicevic, is a faculty member in the Department of Geography recognized for putting considerable time and effort into the experiential aspects of her undergraduate teaching and consistently receiving strong undergraduate student evaluations in the excellent category. Suzana’s research focuses on GIS, modeling human-environment interactions, urban informatics, AI, modeling land use, spatial decision support systems and more.

Do you know someone you want to nominate? Contact: fenv-fr@sfu.ca

Vice President’s Award for Teaching Excellence:

2013 – George Nicholas, Archaeology

2008 – Eugene McCaan, Geography

2005 – Jennifer Hyndman, Geography

1990 – Randall Peterman, Resource and Environmental Management.