Excellence Awards

About the Awards

The BFA Excellence Awards specifically recognize outstanding work and a concerted effort to make advances in the academy.��The Chancellor provides financial support for these prestigious awards and a ceremony in the spring recognizes the winners and features a keynote by the Hazel Barnes Awardee for that year. The BFA will select up to three winners in each category. Each winner receives a $5000 monetary prize, along with a commemorative engraved plaque, and gift bag.��

Nominees must be members of the Boulder Faculty Senate as defined by CU Regent Law and the CU Faculty Senate Constitution; however, the selection process gives preference to nominees who have been with the University of Colorado for at least five years. Additionally, nominated faculty must be in good standing with the University in order to be considered. Nominators must be current or retired members of the CU-Boulder Faculty Senate, or CU-Boulder Administrators who hold a faculty appointment.��

Although faculty may receive the award for a given category only once, they are eligible to receive awards in either of the other two categories in different years. Nomination packets that are not selected the year of submission, are automatically submitted for one additional year with approval of the nominator/nominating committee.��

The BFA will grant awards in each of the following areas:

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2026 Excellence Awards!

Excellence in Leadership & Service

Professor Jennifer Fluri - Geography��

Clinical Professor of Law Violeta Chapin - Colorado Law��

Associate Teaching Professor Dan Riffell - Mechanical Engineering��

Excellence in Research, Scholarly, & Creative Work

Professor Michael McGehee - Chemical & Biological Engineering��

Professor Juliet Gopinath - Electrical, Computer, & Energy Engineering

Professor Bhuvana Narasimhan - Linguistics��

Excellence in Teaching

Assistant Professor Natalie Mendoza - History��