Category: Teaching

Professor Tim Salmon has been named one of the inaugural recipients of the Moody Outstanding Mentor Award, awarded by the Moody School, Office of Faculty Success, and Center for Teaching Excellence! The award recognizes exceptional mentoring of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars by SMU faculty. It also comes with a nice chunk of research funds to help future students.

Professor Salmon has advised 24 Ph.D. students in the 24 years he has been a tenure-track/tenured professor, serving as the main advisor for ten of these students. In addition, he served as the Director of Doctoral Studies in our department for six years. Of the 24 students whose dissertation committee he served, 17 are currently employed in academia, ten of whom have tenure, one of whom is an associate dean, one who is the editor of a journal, several direct centers, and several are or have been department chair. Of the ten students for whom Professor Salmon served as the main advisor, eight are employed in academia and one will graduate this May. Three of these students have already been granted tenure; several of the remainder have not been out long enough. Thus, Professor Salmon has given significant time in his career “paying it forward” to the next generation of Ph.D. students.

Dr. Ahlberg has been nominated for the 2024 HOPE Award. HOPE stands for Honoring Our Professor’s Excellence and is the highest recognition a student can bestow on a faculty member.

Residence Life and Student Housing believes that it is important to highlight those professors who have gone above and beyond in their role. The HOPE Banquet is an opportunity each spring for students from all residential communities to celebrate faculty excellence and involvement in the student experience at SMU.

Carlos Zarazaga was awarded the 2023 Economics Adjunct Teaching Award at the annual Economics Department awards dinner in December.  Carlos joined the SMU faculty 3 ½ years ago, teaching Intermediate Macroeconomics. His professional experience working for the Federal Reserve System for 27 years gives him a unique perspective that students value. Carlos also participates in workshops with graduate students, and engages in research with faculty in the department. About his experience at SMU, Carlos says “…I find it rewarding that in the last class of the semester a bunch of them (undergraduates) usually come to shake my hand and tell me how much they appreciate that my Intermediate Macroeconomic class, albeit challenging, has allowed them to gain some understanding of the economic intricacies behind the Fed monetary policy decisions, about which they had read before almost daily in the press without a clue of what all the fuss was about. But perhaps my best claim to fame is to have managed to get only one disparaging email about my teaching skills from the 250 undergraduate students or so I have had in my courses since I joined the department.” Carlos is a great asset to the department, and we are deeply grateful for his collegiality and professionalism.