Arlan Norman Award for Excellence in Student Mentoring
The Arlan Norman Award for Excellence in Student Mentoring recognizes a faculty member in the College of Science and Engineering for excellence in mentoring student research.
There are two categories of this award, one award will go to a Graduate Mentor and one to an Undergraduate Mentor. The financial award goes to the students of the faculty recipients, plus additional funds for supplies to support the student’s summer research.
Dr. Arlan Norman, beloved founding Dean of the College of Sciences and Technology (now College of Science and Engineering) passed away unexpectedly on Saturday, July 31, 2021. This award was near and dear to Arlie's heart and is truly a fitting tribute to his legacy and is one of the most important for the College of Science and Engineering. It lives on in perpetuity in Arlie’s name as a true testament to his life’s work: promoting, supporting, and celebrating excellence in research.
Selection Criteria
The faculty awardees (one as Graduate Mentor, one as Undergraduate Mentor) will have a demonstrated record of mentoring student research as evidenced by student co-authored conference presentations, student co-authored peer reviewed publications in high-quality journals and proceedings, and other evidence of student success such as research awards, fellowships, etc.
The faculty awardee will select a student from their research group to receive the corresponding funds for research associated with this award based upon a demonstrated merit and outstanding promise in student research. Multiple people may be nominated from a department or program.
Award/Recognition
The Fund’s distribution may be used to pay any costs related to educational expenses, including, but not limited to: tuition, books, materials/supplies, summer research support or conference presentation attendance and travel, etc. The expenditures will be the responsibility of Western Washington University, acting through the designee of the President of the University.
Award Administration
Nomination Process
Nominations for the 2026 awards are now CLOSED. Thank you to those that took the time to nominate a faculty member!
Additional Information
2026
David Hooper - Biology
David Hooper is a professor in the Biology Department, where he has worked since 1998. He received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Middlebury College, his Ph.D. in biology at Stanford University and did post-doctoral research at University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on plant community and soil ecology, aiming to understand how changes to biodiversity, climate and nutrient availability affect benefits that people derive from ecosystems. Most recently, his group’s research has studied how watershed land use and restoring streamside vegetation influence water quality in streams of the Pacific Northwest. He has published 44 peer-reviewed papers, many with graduate students, and is a co-editor for the upcoming International Nitrogen Assessment from Cambridge University Press. He was awarded WWU’s Olscamp Research Award in 2013.
Hooper has mentored 21 master’s students and 51 undergrads in research at Western. Most graduate students present their work at national meetings. He has taught graduate classes in ecosystem ecology, as well as foundational graduate courses on research and teaching strategies and proposal writing. He has served on the Biology Department’s Graduate Student Committee from 2005-2026 and chaired that committee from 2019-2022, including organizing the always-amusing Biology Department Talent and Entertainment Show for grad students, faculty and staff.
Jeanine Amacher - Chemistry
Associate Professor Jeanine Amacher is a protein biochemist and structural biologist, who investigates specificity determinants in peptide-binding domains. She earned her B.S. in physics at the University of Oregon and Ph.D. in biochemistry from Dartmouth. She was a postdoctoral fellow at U.C. Berkeley before she started at Western in 2017.
She is passionate about mentoring and training students toward their career goals. The Amacher lab has provided training opportunities for 46 undergraduates, eight master’s students, and six high school students, including two Goldwater Scholars, a Beckman Scholar, multiple Outstanding Chemistry graduates, and a Presidential Scholar. She has additionally mentored 11 Honors capstone projects. Amacher has published 15 research papers at Western, and 65% of Amacher lab undergraduate research students are a co-author on at least one publication. Almost all students present their work at regional and/or national conferences. Lab alumni commonly matriculate into top tier graduate or professional programs. The lab is currently or previously funded by NSF CAREER, NSF RUI, NIH R15, Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, and Cottrell Scholar awards. She also developed and organizes the biennial Molecular Biosciences Symposium, and directed the NSF REU program in chemistry from 2023-2026, which provided summer research experiences to 30 undergraduate students.
Past Awardees
2 awardee(s) for this year
2025 Awardees
Melissa Rice - Geology/Physics & Astronomy
Melissa Rice is a professor of Planetary Science in both WWU’s Geology and Physics & Astronomy departments, where she has been a faculty member since 2014. Her research focuses on the geology of Mars and is supported by over $2 million in external grants. The Western Mars Lab, Melissa’s research group, includes research staff, postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students. To help interpret data from NASA’s Mars rovers, Melissa runs a reflectance spectroscopy laboratory on campus, which her group uses to study the properties of Mars analog rocks and minerals. She received WWU’s Paul J. Olscamp Research Award in 2022.
Melissa has mentored 10 master’s students and 35 undergraduate students across various STEAM disciplines at WWU. As a team member on NASA's Perseverance and Curiosity rover missions, Melissa is one of a small number of scientists who have involved undergraduates in actual rover planning and operations. Melissa also worked with undergraduate students to help design aspects of Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z cameras. Of her undergraduate mentees, 19 have presented at professional conferences, 12 have participated directly in NASA Mars rover mission operations, nine have contributed to peer-reviewed publications, and eight have continued on to competitive graduate programs.
Ying Bao - Chemistry
Associate Professor of Chemistry Ying Bao highly values the opportunity to mentor students — both in the classroom and the research lab — and is passionate about supporting and empowering students from all backgrounds to succeed.
Ying’s research group focuses on the development of functional metallic nanomaterials for applications in sensing, catalysis, and imaging. She has secured approximately $1 million in external funding to support both her research and shared instrumentation. Since joining WWU seven years ago, she has mentored six master’s students and twenty-two undergraduates, with two master’s and nine undergraduate students currently active in her group. Seventeen of her mentees have coauthored the group’s 10 peer-reviewed publications, produced through both independent and collaborative efforts. Her students regularly present their work at regional and national conferences in both oral and poster formats. To date, nine of her students have gone on to pursue graduate or professional degrees, while seven have obtained research positions in industry.
Ying received her B.E. Degree in Pharmaceutical Engineering at Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, China, in 2008. She then came to the United States and earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of South Dakota in 2013. Ying worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago before coming to Western as a faculty member in 2017.