The University of Louisiana at Lafayette has recognized five exemplary educators as its Eminent Faculty class.
The UL Lafayette Foundation sponsors the annual awards. They are the highest recognition the University confers on faculty. Established in 1965, the awards honor educators for their research, teaching effectiveness, and contributions to their professions and to campus life.
Dr. Christoph W. Borst and Dr. Wu Xu are the Distinguished Professor Award honorees. The award recognizes faculty for their research accomplishments, teaching effectiveness and contributions to their profession and campus life.
The Dr. Ray P. Authement Excellence in Teaching Award is named for the University’s fifth president. It has recognized faculty commitment to teaching and innovation since 1992.
Recipients are Dr. Ahmed Temani and Brian West.
The Leadership Service Award recipient is Dr. Jennifer Hargrave. The award honors a faculty member who combines service-learning with classroom instruction to forge skills and knowledge that students can apply to community leadership opportunities.
The University selects the honorees based on recommendations from a faculty committee. Each recipient receives a $5,000 stipend. The Eminent Faculty class was honored during a ceremony on Nov. 6.
Profiles of the recipients follow.
Distinguished Professor Award Honorees
Dr. Christoph W. Borst is a professor of computer science for the School of Computing and Informatics in the Ray P. Authement College of Sciences. He holds the Hardy Edmiston Endowed Professorship in Computer Science II.
A pioneer in virtual reality, Borst has been instrumental in positioning UL Lafayette as a leader in virtual reality research. In 2003, he established the University’s virtual research lab and, in 2005, a virtual reality course that became the first of its kind in Louisiana. He has also developed courses in computer graphics, scientific visualization and experiment methods.
Borst’s research has contributed significantly to improving user experiences in virtual reality by creating techniques for more realistic hand interaction, improved collaboration in shared virtual spaces for scientific exploration and education, emotion detection from physiological signals, and virtual reality-based robot control. He has also developed new approaches involving touch feedback, visual cues and eye tracking.
Dr. Wu Xu is a professor who leads the Department of Chemistry in the Ray P. Authement College of Sciences. He holds the Marvin and Warren Boudreaux/Louisiana Education Quality Support Fund Professorship in Chemistry I.
Xu is an internationally recognized authority in biochemistry, photosynthesis and computational structural biology whose work bridges molecular spectroscopy, protein biophysics and bioinformatics.
His research explores how the three-dimensional physical shape of proteins allows them to pass chemical messages inside a cell.
He created the Triangular Spatial Relationship framework, a computational method for comparing three-dimensional protein structures that is now applied to drug-target prediction.
For nearly two decades, Xu has continuously modernized the undergraduate and graduate courses he teaches in chemistry and biochemistry through the integration of advanced computational and experimental tools.
He has secured more than $3 million in competitive funding as principal or co-principal investigator.
Ray P. Authement Excellence in Teaching Award Honorees
Dr. Ahmed Temani is a master instructor for the Department of Petroleum Engineering in the College of Engineering. He holds the Lee and Ken Matherne Endowed Professorship in Petroleum Engineering.
Temani earned the College of Engineering’s Teacher of the Year Award in 2022. He has introduced industry-standard software across departmental courses and laboratories. Temani has also integrated generative artificial intelligence into his instruction. Students build web applications while learning to exercise engineering judgment: defining problems, questioning assumptions and critically evaluating solutions. He was selected for the first cohort of the college’s AI-Ready Engineers initiative.
Temani helped shape the college’s smart oilfield concentration, the first of its kind in the country. He serves as a faculty adviser to the Society of Petroleum Engineers and its student PetroBowl team. The team placed among the top four U.S. universities in the international quiz-bowl style competitions in 2021 and 2025.
Brian West is a master instructor for the School of Computing and Informatics in the Ray P. Authement College of Sciences. He is the college’s informatics undergraduate coordinator and an honors faculty fellow.
West’s teaching spans the full extent of informatics disciplines, from first-year foundations to advanced coursework in networking, cybersecurity, systems integration, database-driven web development and information technology project management.
West designs courses around real-world problem solving and is known for an ability to translate the principles of evolving technologies into terms students can readily grasp and apply.
He has chaired the informatics curriculum committee and has played a central role in building and strengthening the informatics program, working to ensure the curriculum remains career-relevant and aligned with the needs of the computing and cybersecurity professions.
He earned the Excellence in Teaching Award from the National Society of Leadership and Success and the University Award for Excellence in Advising.
Leadership Service Award Honoree
Dr. Jennifer Hargrave is an assistant professor of teaching for the School of Geosciences in the Ray P. Authement College of Sciences. She is also director of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Science Museum.
Hargrave blends fieldwork and fossil cataloguing with service learning in the undergraduate and graduate earth sciences courses she teaches.
She developed a museum techniques geology course. Students design and install public exhibits at the science museum and coordinate its science, technology, engineering and mathematics events. In other courses, her students develop STEM activities for K-12 schools.
Hargrave has steered the science museum’s operational plan and vision. She has secured grant and sponsorship support for exhibits, programming and outreach.
Outreach efforts benefit more than 500 area students each year, through programs and initiatives that include hosting field trips to the museum, STEM Saturdays and an annual Dino Dig for elementary students.
Photo caption: Eminent Faculty Award honorees at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette from left are Dr. Christoph W. Borst, Dr. Wu Xu, Dr. Ahmed Temani, Brian West and Dr. Jennifer Hargrave. Photo credit: Doug Dugas / University of Louisiana at Lafayette