FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The Arkansas Alumni Association has honored four faculty members for their distinguished achievements over their careers. Ro Di Brezzo, Greg Thoma, Benjamin Runkle and Jeannie Whayne all received awards recognizing exemplary achievements as University of Arkansas faculty.

The Arkansas Alumni Association has recognized hard-working faculty withDistinguished Faculty Achievement Awards since 1961 and each honoree is chosen based on one of three categories of accomplishment: teaching, research and public service.

Additionally, the U of A honors a faculty member with the Charles and Nadine Baum Faculty Teaching Award. Each of the honorees received a $5,000 stipend during the fall semester and will be honored in the spring as a part of the association’s Alumni Awards Celebration.

The 2020 honorees are:

• For achievement in service, Ro Di Brezzo, university professor in the Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation in the College of Education and Health Professions. 

• For achievement in research, Greg Thoma B.S.Che.’80, M.S.Che.’86, professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering in the College of Engineering.
• The rising teaching award, Benjamin Runkle, associate professor of Biological and Agri Engineering in the College of Engineering

• The Baum Faculty Teach Award, Jeannie Whayne, university professor in the Department of History of the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Ro Di Brezzo 

Ro Di Brezzo served as a faculty member at the U of A for 37 years. During that time, she has served on numerous departmental, college and university committees; been recognized with awards for teaching, research and service; and has held leadership roles within the university’s administration, including:

• Co-founder and co-director of the Wally Cordes Teaching and Faculty Support Center
• President of the Teaching Academy
• Faculty Senate chair
• Co-director of the Office for Studies on Aging since 1999.

From 2012-2013, Di Brezzo was the vice provost for academic affairs. From 2014-2017, she held the post of vice provost for faculty development and enhancement. From 2017-2019, she served as the first vice provost for faculty affairs before returning to the faculty as University Professor of exercise science in the Department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation in 2019 and retiring in 2020.

Greg Thoma

Greg Thoma has served on the university faculty of the Ralph E. Martin Department of Chemical Engineering since December 1993. His research program has been tremendously productive. Thoma is at the top of his research field and is influencing the practices of Life Cycle Assessment modeling for agriculture. In the last five years alone, Thoma has:

• Published 35 papers.
• Given more than 30 presentations.
• Brought in more than $15 million as the principal investigator or co-PI.

Thoma serves on steering boards and technical advisory groups for the United Nations and national governments. He is currently supervising four graduate students and three post-doctoral fellows.

Benjamin Runkle

Runkle joined the U of A’s department of biological and agricultural engineering in 2014. He teaches courses in sustainable watershed engineering and modeling environmental biophysics — both senior-level courses in biological engineering. Runkle has:

• Been honored with mentoring awards in 2018, 2019 and 2020 from the Provost’s Office and the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards.
• Mentored 2019 Razorback Classic Laura Gray and 2020 Razorback Classic Eleanor Henson
• Earned the 2019 Early Achievement in Engineering Education Award from the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Division of ASEE.

He received the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation in 2018 and has been acknowledged with departmental and college teaching and research awards.

Jeannie Whayne

Jeannie Whayne joined the university faculty of the Department of History in 1990 and is a specialist in agricultural and southern history. Her research focuses on the lower Mississippi River Valley and the interplay of social and economic history with environmental change, agricultural development and race relations. Whayne has:

• Received Fulbright College’s Master Teacher award.
• Been inducted into the U of A’s Teaching Academy.
• Served as the Teaching Academy’s president.
• Served as co-director of the Wally Cordes Teaching and Faculty Support Center.

Whayne is a fellow of the Agricultural History Society and a distinguished lecturer with the Organization of American Historians.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among fewer than 3 percent of colleges and universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.