The Dean's Scholar Award recognizes faculty candidates for promotion who excel in both teaching and scholarship or creative work. The two-year awards carry a one-time grant, which may be used for equipment, travel, supplies, and other support for research and teaching initiatives.

These faculty development awards are funded by the UI Alumni Association's endowment of the Dean's Chair in the Liberal Arts and Sciences. The CLAS Committee on Faculty Promotion and Tenure selects each year's class of Dean's Scholars from among those faculty recommended for promotion and/or tenure.

2023-2025

Louisa Hall Portrait

Louisa Hall

Department of English

Louisa Hall’s work involves interrogations of fiction, biography, science, science fiction, and the ethics of writing about other people, animals, and things. She is the author of Reproduction, Trinity and Speak. Trinity was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Award and the winner of the Langum Prize for historical fiction; Speak was a Best Book of the Year in NPR, Slate, the Washington Post, and Men's Journal. She has also authored several poems and scholarly essays relevant to her field. 

David Miles Portrait

David Miles

Department of Physics and Astronomy

David Miles’s research focuses on space physics. More specifically, he researches space weather, solar-terrestrial physics, and auroral dynamics, interpretation of space-based magnetic field measurements, development of spaceflight instrumentation to make high-resolution measurements of magnetic fields, instrument Co-PI of the magnetic field instrument on the Cassiope/e-POP Spacecraft, and instrument PI and is a student mentor for the Ex-Alta 1 CubeSat.

2022-2024

Allison Jaynes

Allison Jaynes

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Allison N. Jaynes’s research focuses on experimental space physics, particularly inner magnetosphere particle dynamics. She is also the former recipient of the University of Iowa Postdoctoral Association Mentor Award. She currently also serves as Co-Lead on the SCOSTEP PRESTO committee for predictions of the Sun-Earth environment, and as a member of both the AGU Nomination Task Force and National Academies study on Increasing PI Diversity and Inclusion in the Leadership of Competed Space Missions.