Three faculty members have received 1998 faculty excellence awards in teaching and research from the Alumni Association.

Scott W. Brown, professor of educational psychology and head of the department, is this year's recipient of the Excellence in Teaching award. David R. Miller, professor of natural resources management and engineering, and Evarist Gine, professor of mathematics, received this year's Excellence in Research awards.

Brown, who has taught a wide range of courses from the undergraduate to the doctoral level, is widely recognized as a gifted teacher among colleagues, undergraduate and graduate students. His former doctoral students currently hold professorships at prestigious institutions such as Utah State University, Emory University and Tulane University. Others are agency directors, school practitioners and corporate partners.

A role model for faculty in using technology to enhance learning, Brown uses Web-based instructional materials to support his classroom teaching. He was the first faculty member in the School of Education to teach a course via distance learning and he has helped his colleagues use technology in their classrooms.

Brown is known as an inspiring lecturer. He has taught seminars for the Institute for Teaching and Learning on distance learning and integrating technology into course work. He also has presented seminars in residence halls on problem-solving and improving study skills.

Gine, who has been at UConn since 1990, has a career that spans 25 years. After finishing his Ph.D. in 1973, Gine began working on the central limit theorem for processes and for variables, taking values in abstract Banach spaces. The central limit theorem is the basis for many common statistical procedures, such as determination of confidence intervals and hypothesis testing. Gine's work considerably extended its usefulness. He authored a book on the subject and solved several problems on the relationship between probability and geometry in infinite dimensions. He has worked on empirical processes since the mid-1980s, an area that provides the theoretical foundation for procedures to retrieve information from data..

In 1990, Gine, in collaboration with Joel Zinn of Texas A & M University, wrote a landmark paper on the "bootstrap," which allows for extracting information from data sets in unexpected ways by intensive use of computers. This paper is one of three on the bootstrap that have won him international acclaim.

In 1992, he began research on U-statistics and U-processes, which develop the theory needed to analyze statistical estimators. He is now writing a book on the subject. Gine is associate editor of several journals including Annals of Probability.

Miller, one of the country's outstanding researchers in atmospheric science, has made many contributions in forest meteorology, watershed modeling, and atmospheric contamination.

His research in forest meteorology has produced new theories about the physical environment of the forest and has led to practical procedures for forest protection and management. His research on instrumentation and measurement of atmospheric turbulence in forest environments and on the development of numerical models of the forest edge environment is particularly noteworthy.

Miller's research on aerial applications of pesticides has resulted in a safer environment and recommendations for a major change in pest-control policy by the U.S. Forest Service. He has collaborated with federal agencies on modeling the behavior of aerosols. His interest in the experimental monitoring and numerical modeling of watersheds has led to numerous research projects for master's and doctoral students from various schools and colleges at UConn.

The faculty excellence awards were presented April 6 at the Centennial Alumni House.

Sherry Fisher