Hanks, Bodenschatz Named Winners Of Bellet Teaching Excellence Awards

Bryan K. Hanks, assistant professor in the Pitt School of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Anthropology, and Carl D. Bodenschatz, a senior lecturer in the Department of Statistics, have been named winners of the 2007 Tina and David Bellet Arts and Sciences Teaching Excellence Award.

The two will be honored at a dinner April 11 in the William Pitt Union Ballroom.

The Bellet Awards were established in 1998 with a $200,000 donation from School of Arts and Sciences alumnus David Bellet (CAS ’67), and his wife, Tina, to recognize outstanding and innovative undergraduate teaching in Arts and Sciences.

A committee appointed by the Arts and Sciences Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies evaluates teaching skills as evidenced by student and peer evaluations of teaching, student testimonials, and dossiers submitted by nominees.

Full-time faculty members who have taught in Arts and Sciences over the past three years are eligible. Each awardee this year will receive a cash prize of $3,000 and for the first time, each honoree’s department will receive a one-time grant of $5,000.

Prior to coming to Pitt in 2003, Hanks was a lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield and an undergraduate tutor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, both in England. In addition to serving on the Pitt anthropology department faculty, Hanks is a research associate at the Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh and an affiliated faculty member in Pitt’s Russian and East European Studies and European Studies Centers.

Hanks is involved in international collaborative field research, including his latest project, titled  “A Bioarchaeological Approach to Middle Bronze Age Metallurgy and Social Stratification in the Southern Urals, Russia,” with Southern Urals University, the University of Sheffield, and Pitt. Past research included a sampling program of Middle to Late Bronze Age settlements and cemeteries and a horse DNA sampling project.

Hanks earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology at Boise State University, graduating cum laude in 1998, the Master of Arts degree with distinction in European prehistory and archaeology at the University of Sheffield in 1999, and his Ph.D. degree in archaeology at the University of Cambridge in 2003.

Bodenschatz served as deputy department head for operations and was a tenured professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy before joining Pitt in 2000. During his tenure at the academy, he also served as director of research, statistics division chief, and calculus division chief. In addition, he spent a year as an adjunct professor at Colorado Technical University.

At Pitt, Bodenschatz has developed, directed, and taught various courses, among them Statistics and Probability for Business Management, Statistical Quality Control, Linear Regression, Applied Nonparametric Statistics, and Quantitative Methods of Operations Research. He is director of Pitt’s Undergraduate Statistics Program and developed the minor in applied statistics, the writing intensive course for statistics majors, and the joint economics-statistics major.

Bodenschatz received the Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics with a minor in statistics from West Virginia University graduating magna cum laude in 1980, the Master of Science degree in operations research as a distinguished graduate from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1983, and the Ph.D. degree in operations research with an emphasis on probability and statistics from the University of Texas in 1992.