Each year, the UMBC community comes together to celebrate the accomplishments of our outstanding faculty and staff.
This year we honor:

UMBC Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards

L.D. Timmie Topoleski
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Presidential Teaching Professor, 2008-2011

L.D. Timmie Topoleski, professor of mechanical engineering, has distinguished himself as an outstanding scholar and educator whose engaging teaching has touched and inspired many students at UMBC. Topoleski serves as graduate program director in mechanical engineering, and under his direction the program has seen a dramatic transformation both in size and quality. Because of his vision and hard work, the Department of Mechanical Engineering received two prestigious Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need Awards from the U.S. Department of Education. These awards helped create a profound transformation in the type and number of graduate students who are entering the program. He continues to provide steady guidance to his students, working with them in addressing difficult advising and mentoring issues.
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Thomas Matthew
Mathematics and Statistics
Presidential Research Professor, 2008-11

Thomas Mathew, professor of statistics, is an internationally recognized authority on multivariate statistical analysis, bioequivalence testing and statistical tolerance intervals. As an elected fellow of both the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Mathew is a member of the most select group of statistical scientists in the field. He is known for his foundational statistical contributions to the field of inter-laboratory data analysis, and his work was recognized with a Youden Award for inter-laboratory testing from the American Statistical Association.
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Danita Eichenlaub
Associate Director, Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center (GEST)
Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET)
Presidential Distinguished Staff Award, Professional Staff, 2008-2009

In addition to her outstanding management skills, Danita Eichenlaub has demonstrated leadership in the development of financial systems and controls which are now being modeled across the campus. Eichenlaub supervises all aspects of the administrative and financial management for two research centers, GEST and JCET. She has merged the two administrative staffs from the centers into one team and monitors sponsored research funding of $20-25 million annually.
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Ethel "Willi" Haskins-Cotton
Insurance Program Specialist
University Health Services (UHS)
Presidential Distinguished Staff Award, Non-Exempt Staff, 2008-2009

Ethel "Willi" Haskins-Cotton's dedication and initiative has greatly enhanced the services UHS provides to the campus community. She patiently spends time helping international students, graduate assistants and other students—many of whom are managing their own health care for the first time—understand the complexities of medical insurance. Haskins-Cotton established a third-party billing program enabling major insurance companies to reimburse many of the medical services UHS provides. Because of her hard work, UHS has been able to expand its range of services at a time when many college health centers have had to decrease services due to funding shortages.
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UMBC President's Commission for Women Achievement Award

Claudia Morrell
Executive Director, Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT)
President’s Commission for Women Achievement Award 2008-2009

Claudia Morrell is regarded as one of the foremost experts on gender issues in technology in the world and a role model and advocate for young women at UMBC and beyond. As executive director of CWIT, Morrell developed the CWIT Scholars Program, which provides scholarships and programmatic support to young women and men pursuing their undergraduate degrees in information technology and engineering. The CWIT Scholars Program currently retains 94 percent of its students, a rate that exceeds the normal rate of retention for students in these majors.
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University System of Maryland Board of Regents’ Faculty and Staff Awards

Christopher Corbett
Professor of the Practice, English
USM Board of Regents’ Faculty Award for Mentoring, 2007-2008

Christopher Corbett is an award winning journalist who has dedicated himself to helping UMBC students achieve a high level of skill as undergraduate reporters and success in internships and jobs in the field. While teaching nearly all of the journalism courses offered by the Department of English since 1990, Corbett has served as the faculty advisor to The Retriever Weekly. He led its student editors and writers to three Reese Cleghorn Fellowships in recent years, and has helped hundreds of undergraduates hone their critical thinking, writing and editing skills.
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Cindy Kubiet
Director of Sports Medicine, Athletics
USM Board of Regents’ Award, Outstanding Service to Students, 2006-2007

For 29 years, Cindy Kubiet has provided exceptional sports medicine service to student-athletes participating in inter-collegiate sports at UMBC. In addition to her responsibilities involving student-athletes' general health care, Kubiet focuses on program and policy development, budget management, recruitment and training. She supervises and trains a staff that has grown to include four assistant trainers and 10-15 student-trainers, and she coordinates the activities of two team physicians and other health care professionals who treat student-athletes.
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