Faculty awards

Every year, the College of Engineering awards faculty in recognition of their excellent academic and research achievements. Each award has different criteria and requirements, which are outlined on each award page. Please see below for general nomination requirements.

Unless specifically mentioned in the award description, a single award for each category is anticipated. Under exceptional conditions, an award may be given to more than one faculty member in a given year.

Be sure to check out current and past award winners.

Nominate a colleague for a faculty award.

Award Details

Distinguished Professor of Engineering Award

The Distinguished Professor of Engineering Award is awarded to a faculty member within the College of Engineering in recognition of exceptional achievements that have enhanced the reputation of the college. 

This award is offered every other year in even numbered years.

Philip and Marsha Dowd Fellowship

The Philip and Marsha Dowd Fellowship is awarded to a faculty member in engineering to recognize educational contributions and to encourage the undertaking of an educational project such as textbook writing, educational technology development, laboratory experience improvement, educational software, or course and curriculum development.

Steven J. Fenves Award for Systems Research

The Steven J. Fenves Award for Systems Research will be presented to one or more individuals within Carnegie Mellon every year who have made a significant contribution to systems research.

George Tallman Ladd Research Award

The George Tallman Ladd Research Award is awarded to a faculty member within the College of Engineering in recognition of outstanding research and professional accomplishments and potential.

Outstanding Mentoring Award

The Outstanding Mentoring Award is awarded to a faculty member in the College of Engineering in recognition of excellence in mentoring of graduate students and/or junior faculty. 

Casasent Outstanding Research Award

The Casasent Outstanding Research Award is awarded to a faculty member within the College of Engineering in recognition of an exceptional research contribution that has enhanced the reputation of the college in a global or national context. This award is for a research accomplishment that has occurred during the candidate's time in the college and has received significant praise from experts in the field. This award is designed to recognize a singular research accomplishment and is not meant to recognize an accumulated record of accomplishments.

Outstanding Service Award

The Outstanding Service Award is awarded to a faculty member in the College of Engineering in recognition of excellence in service to the College of Engineering and/or its units.

Benjamin Richard Teare Teaching Award

The Benjamin Richard Teare Teaching Award is made to a faculty member within the College of Engineering in recognition of excellence in engineering education.

General eligibility

Faculty awards are open to any active full-time faculty with at least a 25% paid appointment in the College of Engineering (including regular, research, and teaching track faculty as well as special faculty). Affiliated faculty are not eligible for any award unless specifically stated in the award’s eligibility criteria. Faculty who have left the university or transitioned to emeritus status are not eligible for any award unless specifically stated in the award’s eligibility criteria.

In the spirit of Carnegie Mellon’s strong support for interdisciplinary research, when teams are eligible for nomination, it is not required that all team members have appointments within the College of Engineering.  At least one team member must have an appointment within the College of Engineering, and the nominator must make a clear case for how the team meets the other criteria for the award.

General nominations requirements

For most faculty awards, all members of the College of Engineering faculty, students, staff and alumni are eligible to nominate, except for the Ladd, Teare, and Dowd awards.

Nominations are not carried over from year to year. If a nominator wants to re-nominate a faculty member for an award, a new award package must be submitted. The award committee recommends submitting up to date nomination and support letters, but this is at the discretion of the nominator. If supporting letters are re-used from prior years, confirmation of approval from the letter writer must be submitted with the package.

Faculty are free to support as many nominees as they wish and are not restricted to writing support letters for only one nominee for any particular award. However, the award committee may weigh multiple letters from the same faculty member for different nominees as less impactful than if the letter writer chose a single nominee to support.

Nomination cycle

Except for the Distinguished Professor award, nominations are accepted for each award every year; however, just because an award receives nominations does not mean that it will be awarded.

Nomination materials

Materials associated with the nominee’s promotion and tenure package are confidential to that process and should not be used for any other award submission, including internal College of Engineering or Carnegie Mellon University awards. Letters of recommendation and departmental letters/memos associated with personnel evaluation are not to be included in materials submitted for these awards. A submission that includes any prohibited materials will not be reviewed by the award committee.  The department will not be allowed to update or modify the nomination if such materials are included. The nomination will not be considered.

The department may, with the nominee’s permission, use candidate-generated materials (e.g. research statement) to develop award nomination materials. The department may rewrite materials the department generates, removing all mention of reappointment/promotion/tenure, to develop award nomination materials. The department may not use quotes from any submitted letters in any materials submitted for these awards.

The only exception to the foregoing is for the Ladd award, where the nominee’s candidate-generated materials, but no other RPT materials (including the department memo), may be submitted.

Support letters must explicitly reference the award for which the faculty member is being nominated. Re-use of support letters solicited for other purposes is not permitted. Packages that include such letters will not be considered.

FCE scores available to the full community may be included. Individual student comments that are reviewable only by the faculty member and the department head may not be included in any nomination package.

Noncompliant nominations will not be considered.

Research award nominations

The review committee for the research award is made up of technical experts, but they are not experts in every technical field for which faculty in the College of Engineering might be nominated for this award. The nomination materials must be clear to a general technical audience. The nomination materials must clearly articulate how the work has enhanced the reputation of the College of Engineering in a global or national context.