Each spring, WVU recognizes selected faculty members for their exceptional and innovative teaching.
This year, the WVU Foundation Awards for Outstanding Teaching honor the following four faculty members for their commitment to impactful instruction:
• Cody Hood, teaching assistant professor in the School of Mathematical and Data Sciences at the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.
• Jignesh Solanki, teaching associate professor Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources.
• Erin Brock Carlson, associate professor in the Department of English at the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.
• Muzibur Rahman, assistant professor of construction management at the WVU Institute of Technology Leonard C. Nelson School of Engineering.
Established in 1985 by the WVU Foundation, the Outstanding Teaching Awards recognize faculty who are particularly effective and inspiring teachers, as well as those who have established patterns of exceptional innovation in their teaching methods, course and curriculum design, and instructional tools.
“This year’s Outstanding Teaching Award recipients are truly exceptional in their approaches to teaching,” said Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Paul Kreider. “Their ability to inspire curiosity, challenge convention, and engage students in meaningful ways sets a powerful example for the academic community.”
Hood has dedicated himself to curriculum revision focused on improving student success in critical, high-enrollment mathematics courses, such as algebra with applications and applied calculus, and has seen significant success. One of his approaches is to implement guided notes that emphasize key concepts and worked examples. He complements this approach with low-stakes assessments that maintain the course’s rigor while reducing testing anxiety, fostering greater student engagement in a welcoming, personalized environment. Hood also emphasizes authentic, real-world applications that support conceptual understanding and practical relevance for students in a diverse range of majors and fields of study. In addition to his classroom teaching in mathematics, statistics and data science, he also serves as faculty for the West Virginia Governor’s Honors Academy, devoting several weeks each summer teaching at universities and colleges across West Virginia, and supports the West Virginia National Math Team, West Virginia Math Games and North Central West Virginia MathCounts.
Solanki’s systematic, engaging pedagogy provides students with meaningful formative assessment and feedback using real-time, Kahoot-based diagnostic tools to prepare them for real-world application. He also incorporates guided meditation in his courses to help students focus before beginning rigorous technical work. Solanki created a new course bridging power systems and cybersecurity and developed a suite of digital learning tools that serves thousands of students. He has also developed over 60 educational videos that he utilizes for targeted remediation with his students before every assessment. Solanki also developed interactive HTML lab visualizations, which helped solve a critical department-wide problem of standardizing pre-lab preparation. He also recently established the $700K Morey Energy Systems Laboratory, which delivers nine pre-lab assignments and 10 experiments that integrate electrical simulation software with physical equipment and supports a mini-senior design expo. Solanki’s curriculum has been adopted by faculty at other institutions, and his students have gone on to secure faculty positions at universities across the country.
Carlson teaches a wide range of courses — 13 different courses in the last five years — at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and serves students from a range of disciplines including engineering and agriculture to marketing and fashion design. In all of her courses, Carlson’s students produce written deliverables for real audiences and engage with writing from beyond the academy, including local communities. She was an integral part of the development of two new undergraduate degree programs that focus on writing and has also developed new courses that center around collaboration and project management and deliver scaffolded projects aimed at publishing and grant writing for communities and industry. Her courses also deliver experience in writing in online spaces, and students in those courses have created multiple websites and have supported the editing of Wikipedia.
Rahman has been a foundational member of the Construction Management bachelor’s degree program at WVU Institute of Technology, where he has helped design a rigorous, industry-aligned curriculum. He uses simulation-based, research-informed instruction in his courses to promote student engagement, develop professional communication skills and prepare students for leadership roles in the construction industry, with a focus on workforce readiness and applied learning. As a strong advocate for student access, Rahman has served as principal investigator on an Open Educational Resources grant funded by the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission. He was recently selected as a 2025-26 Open Education Research Fellow, a competitive national fellowship.
Faculty members must be nominated by their college leadership to be eligible for the Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching. Each of the honorees will receive $5,000 in professional development monies from the WVU Foundation.
Award recipients will be recognized during a faculty and staff awards reception at Blaney House in April.
Read more about these and other awards on the WVU Faculty website.