ELDON J. GARDNER TEACHING AWARD
HELOISA RUTIGLIANO Dr. Heloisa Rutigliano teaches complex subjects in clear and creative ways to students of animal science and future veterinarians in Utah State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine. She is also an esteemed researcher whose teaching is not reserved for the classroom. Dr. Rutigliano’s lab welcomes students who are willing to learn and work—including those with little or no laboratory experience—and she guides them in making meaningful discoveries and contributions to the field of animal science. She currently teaches courses in animal physiology, immunology, endocrinology, and veterinary ethics and professionalism. Dr. Rutigliano’s students note that she begins each semester stressing her desire for them to succeed and making it clear that she welcomes their questions in and outside of class time. Students appreciate her use of activities such as case studies that let them apply and test their knowledge without negative effects on their grades and praise her interest and concern for each one of them as a whole person and not just their performance in her class. In addition to her understanding of the demanding animal science subjects she teaches, Dr. Rutigliano is an avid student of evolving methods of learning and teaching. She established an Animal, Dairy and Veterinary Sciences Department Learning Circle where faculty come together to improve their teaching practices. In 2020, that included virtual gatherings of faculty who worked to improve their online teaching. In 2017, Dr. Rutigliano was honored with the Outstanding Year-1 Teaching Award in the Washington-IdahoMontana-Utah Regional Program in Veterinary Medicine. In 2019, she was named a Fellow of the Regional Teaching Academy of the Consortium of West Region Colleges of Veterinary Medicine. In 2011, she received the Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the American Society for Reproductive Immunology. Dr. Rutigliano earned her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree at Sao Paulo State University in her native Brazil, and her master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of California, Davis.
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