Greg Pierce

Greg Pierce is the Director of the Honors Core Program and an Instructor in Finance in the Smeal College of Business, where he has been on the faculty since 1986. Prior to coming to Penn State full-time in 1999, he held several engineering and financial management positions at Bechtel Power Corporation, Air Products and Chemicals, HRB Systems/Raytheon, and most recently was Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Treasurer of Licom Technologies, Inc. His current teaching and research interests include corporate financial management and governance, strategic management, mergers and acquisitions, and engineering entrepreneurship. Students say that his experience in the business world brings great examples and situations into the classroom.

R. Allen Kimel

Dr. Kimel is currently Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Associate Head of Undergraduate Studies here at PSU. Prior to this, he completed his B.S. degree in Materials Science and Engineering at North Carolina State University, and then worked in Swaziland, Africa teaching high school math, chemistry, and physics with the US Peace Corps. He received an M.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Penn State. Dr. Kimel joined the Penn State faculty in 2002, and was hired to oversee the design and building of the new undergraduate laboratory in the Stiedle Building and re-design the undergraduate laboratory curriculum. He has created five new lecture and laboratory courses here at Penn State, and has also developed summer camp experiences based on nanoscience, nanotechnology, and materials in renewable energy to inspire high school and middle school students to choose career paths in science and engineering. Students praise Dr. Kimel for being a very caring and knowledgeable professor who has made many extracurricular contributions to the university.

Allen Phillips

Prior to joining Penn State in 1967, Dr. Phillips was an assistant professor at Louisiana State University. He was promoted to professor at Penn State in 1971 and has taught a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in biochemistry and microbiology here at Penn State. He was Associate Head, and then acting head for the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and served on Graduate Council, the University Faculty Senate, and on the University Promotion and Tenure Committee. In addition, he was a contributor to NASA Space Shuttle Mission STS-60 in 1994. He was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 1993, and although he has been retired since 1991, Dr. Phillips can still be found at Penn State most days of the week, speaking with colleagues, helping undergraduate students, or teaching a class he designed this past semester called, "Practical Applications for Enzyme Kinetics,” which one student decribes as, “nothing to sneeze at!” His students say that anyone who knows him doesn't have to look within, to see his Nittany Lion shining through. He has cultivated scientists, taught students to love Penn State as much as he does so that they return to teach, and touched them in a way that they feel forever indebted.

Andrew Peck

Andrew Peck is a senior lecturer in psychology here at Penn State, and his Psychology 002 class has consistently ranked as a top favorite among students for many years. Dr. Peck has been recognized in various news articles, focusing on how he manages to engage and inspire so many students. His honors include the Outstanding Teaching Award for Non-Tenure Line Faculty, and the Outstanding Distance Education Teaching Award. Students say that Peck’s classes are definitely “worth going to, even at 8 a.m.” He is “ a passionate, caring professor, who is greatly involved in the pursuit of excellence for Penn State, its campus and its students.”

Elizabeth Smith

Dr. Elizabeth Smith has been at Penn State since 1982, and is an Associate Professor of Art History, currently teaching courses in medieval art and architecture. She received a Ph.D. and M.A. in the history of medieval art and architecture, attending the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and the Université de Strasbourg in France. Dr. Smith has done many publications on sculpture and architecture through the years, and has also curated an exhibition on Medieval Art in America. Her present research project is a study of the design and construction of the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, for which she has received fellowships from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Graham Foundation. She is a recipient of the College of Arts and Architecture Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching. Dr. Smith’s students describe her as “one of the best instructors I have known, upbeat… intelligent…and personal.”

Jennifer Graham

Dr. Jennifer Graham completed her Ph.D. in Social and Health Psychology at Stony Brook University in 2003, and joined the Biobehavioral Health faculty at Penn State in 2006. Recently, she completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship in Psychoneuroimmunology at The Ohio State University. Dr. Graham's research has been published in biomedical and psychological journals, she serves as a reviewer for a number of journals, and her research has garnered a number of notable awards. Dr. Graham has been invited to present her work at national and international conferences, as well as at other universities, and she recently chaired a symposium focused on inflammation and pain. She currently teaches courses which include Gender & Biobehavioral Health, and Drugs, Behavior and Health, and recognition of her skills include a departmental award for teaching excellence. Students describe her as an “excellent professor and a great mentor.”

Claudia Anderson

Claudia Anderson is a PSU instructor teaching reading and language arts methods courses. She is a former elementary school teacher, reading specialist, and staff developer, and a former reading intervention trainer for CLIP, the "Collaborative Literacy Intervention Project" instructing teachers in Arizona, Colorado, and at a Navajo reservation in New Mexico. She has written thematic units and activities for reading texts published by the Wright Group, authored materials for staff development manuals, made presentations at state, regional, and national reading conferences, and has provided inservices and workshops for room teachers and administrators in Arizona, Nevada, and Mississippi. She was awarded the "Celebrate Literacy Award" for exemplary service in the promotion of literacy from the International Reading Association and the Arizona Reading Association. Students say that Claudia is a leader among her fellow professors, going above and beyond to make sure that her students succeed.

Lori Gravish

Lori Gravish has been a Penn State University faculty member since 1999 and is an instructor within the Department of Kinesiology. She has also served as the Wellness Coordinator for the Village at Penn State Life Care Retirement Community since 2003. Prior to becoming a PSU instructor, Lori served as a cardiac rehabilitation director in the State College area for eight and a half years, and guided Penn State kinesiology interns. Lori has done extensive work with conferences, workshops, presentations, and counseling, along with instructing students to higher levels of clinical and practical learning, mentoring students for internships, graduate school and career opportunities, and organizing educational conferences for students and offering courses in professional development. Lori is described by her students as an engaging professor who is an inspiration to her students and one of the greatest professors in the Kinesiology Department.