Campus News

Faculty members honored with USC Mentoring Awards

The awards recognize faculty for exceptional mentoring of undergraduate students, graduate students, or other faculty members.

Carolyn Barnes May 11, 2022

Ricky Bluthenthal, USC’s new associate dean for social justice, speaks with students in his qualitative research methods class. (USC Photo/Eric Lindberg)

Faculty members from the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences received 2022 USC Mentoring Awards at a reception hosted by the USC Center for Excellence in Teaching.

Pictured: Heather Wipfli, PhD and students at the World Health Assembly. Photo courtesy Heather Wipfli, PhD.

Heather Wipfli, PhD, associate professor of population and public health sciences and international relations, received the award for Faculty Mentoring Undergraduate Students.

“USC has the most talented, intelligent, and committed undergraduate students,” she says. “It is my honor to work closely with them as they learn and discover their passions and talents. Being appreciated for my mentorship from among my impressive and dedicated colleagues is a huge honor.”

Pictured: David Black, PhD, MPH. Photo courtesy David Black, PhD, MPH.

Wipfli is fittingly the newly appointed director of the Bachelor of Science in Global Health and Bachelor of Science in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention programs.

David Black, PhD, MPH, associate professor of population and public health sciences also received the Faculty Mentoring Undergraduate Students award. He sums up his philosophy with a quote from Carl Gustav Jung: “You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”

Ricky Bluthenthal, PhD, professor of population and public health sciences and associate dean for social justice, received the award for Faculty Mentoring Graduate Students. “I am deeply honored to receive this award,” he says. “Helping to develop the next generation of outstanding scholars is one of the joys of my professional career.”