ASU Now | December 19, 2019
Joni Adamson, the director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, and Michael Angilletta, a professor in the School of Life Sciences and the associate director of undergraduate programs, have been named President's Professors. To be designated as a President’s Professor is one of ASU’s most prestigious faculty honors. The recognition is given to faculty who have made substantial contributions to undergraduate education and faculty who have the ability to inspire original, creative works in their fields.
Adamson has been with the university since 2006 and is the author and/or co-editor of eight books, two of which initiated a paradigm shift in environmental humanities, pushing the discipline toward acknowledging discriminatory social practices and environmental injustices. In 2009, Adamson introduced the first undergraduate Environmental Humanities Certificate in the university, illuminating the physical and political dimensions of the environment. She is the Director of the North American Observatory and in 2019, she received a prestigious humanities award, the Benjamin N. Duke Senior Fellowship of the Research Triangle Foundation. Adamson is currently working on a new book to “explore the origins of human thinking on climate.”
(Learn more: President’s Professor leads first international discussion about the best ways to teach environmental humanities)
In addition to his role at the School of Life Sciences, Angilletta is also a senior sustainability scholar in the ASU Wrigley Institute and the developer of the adaptive-learning platform BioSpine. BioSpine has been hailed as sparking a “revolution in biology education” by aligning and reforming the undergraduate curriculum in biological sciences. He also led the development of the first online Bachelor of Science in biological sciences, collaborating with Labster and Google to incorporate lab courses in virtual reality. He continues to push the boundaries of educational technology. In 2009, Angilletta wrote the book “Thermal Adaptation” which was honored as the Book of the Year by the British Ecological Society.