{"id":78046,"date":"2013-05-13T10:12:46","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T14:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=78046"},"modified":"2013-05-16T10:24:07","modified_gmt":"2013-05-16T14:24:07","slug":"two-faculty-named-2013-board-of-trustees-distinguished-professors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/05\/two-faculty-named-2013-board-of-trustees-distinguished-professors\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Faculty Named 2013 Board of Trustees Distinguished Professors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Linda<\/a>
Linda Pescatello, professor of kinesiology, and Mark Boyer, professor of political science, are presented with the 2013 Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor award by Provost Mun Choi during the Graduate School commencement ceremony at Harry A. Gampel Pavilion on May 11. (Max Sinton ’15 (CANR)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two UConn faculty members recognized for exceptional distinction in scholarship, teaching, and service have been designated as Board of Trustees Distinguished Professors, the University\u2019s highest honor for educators.<\/p>\n

In addition to joining a select group of UConn educators, Mark A. Boyer<\/a> and Linda S. Pescatello<\/a> have something else in common: They credit their success to the pure joy of learning about new topics, sharing the insights with students and fellow researchers, and working at a university that encourages scholarly curiosity and exploration.<\/p>\n

Boyer and Pescatello are professors in the departments of political science<\/a> and kinesiology<\/a> respectively, and have long histories of producing intriguing research, engaging students with new challenges and ideas, and working closely with other faculty on interdisciplinary projects.<\/p>\n

UConn\u2019s Board of Trustees voted unanimously and enthusiastically at its meeting in April to designate Boyer and Pescatello as \u201cBoard of Trustees Distinguished Professors,\u201d a title that only 49 other faculty members<\/a> have been granted in the 15 years since it was established.<\/p>\n

\"Linda<\/a>
Linda Pescatello, professor of kinesiology, with a test subject and spotter demonstrating a weight training exercise. (File photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pescatello, who holds three degrees from UConn and has taught at the University since 1998, is an internationally recognized leading scholar on blood pressure response to exercise among people with hypertension. Pescatello, a lifelong athlete, also is studying the influence of exercise on cancer survivors, and is in the early stages of new research on the use of yoga to help manage stress and reduce substance use among college veterans and among methadone users.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so fortunate because I\u2019m getting paid to study things that are intrinsically interesting to me anyway,\u201d says Pescatello \u201977 (CLAS), \u201981 MS (ED), \u201986 Ph.D. (ED), \u201cbut having the opportunity to always be challenged by new ideas and new approaches also keeps me going and excited about my work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>
Mark Boyer, right, professor of political science, with colleague and fellow political science professor Jennifer Sterling-Folker. (File photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boyer, who came to UConn fresh from graduate school in 1988 and is now the department head in political science, says the ability to pursue various interests and team up with researchers in other disciplines has also helped shape his career. His specialty areas include public goods theory, negotiation and bargaining, and the politics of the environment \u2013 specifically climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we\u2019re one of the most environmentally conscious campuses in the world, there are a lot of opportunities for really interesting educational lessons all around us,\u201d Boyer says. \u201cOne of my touchstones in the classroom is active engagement \u2013 it\u2019s important to get students engaged in ways that make this real rather than just listening to me talk for an hour and a half or so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boyer and Pescatello both emphasize the value of collaborating with students, professors in other disciplines, and other researchers as a key part of their own successes in and out of the classroom.<\/p>\n

Pescatello holds joint appointments in UConn\u2019s departments of allied health sciences, nutritional sciences, physiology and neurobiology, and community medicine and health care. She also is a senior research specialist in the Metabolic Services Division at the Hospital for Central Connecticut, and has consultant privileges in the Division of Cardiology at Hartford Hospital.<\/p>\n

She has published more than 125 scientific papers and reviews, three books, numerous book chapters, has won hundreds of thousands of dollars\u2019 worth of external research grants, and has advised and mentored dozens of students who\u2019ve gone on to publish in her field\u2019s top journals.<\/p>\n

\u201cMentoring and guiding these young people and helping them develop their careers is particularly rewarding,\u201d says Pescatello, who has spent about 30 years of her adult life at UConn between her own time as a student and her career as a professor.<\/p>\n

Boyer, who describes himself as \u201ca recipient of a lot of good fortune and support along the way professionally,\u201d is also a Scholar-in-Residence at UConn\u2019s Center for Environmental Science and an affiliated faculty member with the School of Engineering\u2019s Environmental Engineering Program.<\/p>\n

He holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in political science from Wittenberg University, and received his master\u2019s and doctorate degrees from the University of Maryland, where he says his graduate mentors were superlative and set him on a path toward today\u2019s successes.<\/p>\n

One of his largest, long-term research projects is the GlobalEd Project<\/a> with Scott W. Brown, a professor of educational psychology in the Neag School of Education. Started in 1992, GlobalEd conducts Internet-based international studies simulations for secondary school students, and has received more than $5 million in peer-reviewed grant support in the past 15 years.<\/p>\n

Boyer says that while he is pleased that the collaboration has helped bring in so much research money, he is particularly happy and humbled by the Distinguished Professor designation because it recognizes teaching and service as well as research.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve tried very hard throughout my career to integrate teaching, research, and service,\u201d he says, \u201cand it\u2019s very gratifying that that\u2019s been recognized.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Political science professor Mark Boyer and kinesiologist Linda Pescatello have been honored by the Trustees for scholarship, teaching, and service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":78112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[124],"class_list":["post-78046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 08:50:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78046"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78133,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78046\/revisions\/78133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/78112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78046"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=78046"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=78046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}