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Houk, Riney-Kehrberg recognized with Graduate Mentoring award

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Robert Houk, Professor, Department of Chemistry, and Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Professor, Department of History, have each received 2015 Graduate Mentoring awards.

They will be recognized at the Liberal Arts and Sciences Fall Convocation and Awards Ceremony on Thursday, September 10, at 3:30 p.m. in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union.

Graduate Mentoring
Recognizes the effectiveness of major professors who serve as mentors and who enrich the student-professor relationship by support and attention to detail, which enables students to finish their work in a timely and scholarly manner. Major professors considered for this award are expected to be supportive of their students beyond graduation:

• Robert Houk, Professor, Department of Chemistry. Houk has been at ISU since 1974 and has been on the Chemistry faculty since 1981. His research area is analytical chemistry, mass spectrometry, and atomic spectrometry. Houk feels strongly that the graduate school experience should not de-humanize the student and tailors the management of research to the needs and abilities of the individual. The dissertations of his students represent most of the important improvements in ICP-MS since its origins with Houk’s first instrument in 1978. Houk has also been a “minor mentor” to many students in other groups and has served on at least 160 POSC.

• Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, Professor, Department of History. An internationally-recognized scholar in American rural history, past president of the Agricultural History Society, and a keystone member of Iowa State’s History Department, Riney-Kehrberg has demonstrated the path to professional accomplishment and guided others to emulate her success. Earning her PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1991, she taught for nine years at Illinois State University, arriving in Ames in 2000 as an associate professor. Over the course of her academic career, she has written or edited five books and served as department chair. Her work with graduate students in the History Department is unparalleled, directing or having directed 17 MA theses and 20 PhD dissertations during her time at Iowa State.

See all 2015 faculty and staff awards.