Please join me in congratulating Daniel Turner, who was selected as the winner of the 2023 Robert C. Palmer Outstanding Staff Award!

Daniel is a Student Learning Specialist in the department, and he had several nominations for the award.  The nominations speak to his dedication to students, going beyond his job description, being helpful whenever possible, working well in teams, and providing valuable insights and recommendations.  Some excerpts from the nomination letters are below.

Dan’s job description of “student learning specialist” includes many different responsibilities within the Department, including lecturing, training Teaching Assistants, and leading the common-exam test writing process for multiple courses. To this already overly full list, he has found time to make contributions to the field of chemical education outside of the Department. This has included coauthoring two articles in the Journal of Chemical Education and a dozen presentations at regional and national chemical education conferences.

[…] if his job description emphasized chemical education research, I am convinced his impact would be even greater. To do this work “on the side” is remarkable, as it exceeds many others who are full-time chemical education researchers.

In the spring semester Daniel worked diligently to meet the needs of a visually impaired student – doing anything he could to provide course materials exceptionally early for brailing and ensuring consistency among all course materials […] SLDS reached out to Daniel in Nov 22 to plan for SP23 semester […] In the time between Nov and Jan Daniel met with SLDS several times , as well as with the student so that the student could be fully engaged and all course items were accessible.

Daniel has supported the mission of the Undergraduate CBC office consistently since he was hired. He has an enormous amount of roles and responsibilities and a deserving candidate for this departmental award.

Congratulations Daniel!