Dr. Murshed Chowdhury, associate professor of economics will receive a Dr. Allan P. Stuart Memorial Award for Excellence in Teaching on Thursday, May 16 in Fredericton. Dr. Chowdhury joined UNB as an assistant professor in 2016 having previously taught at universities in Canada, China and Bangladesh and serving as a consultant to the United Nations Development Programme in New York, USA.

Since joining UNB, Dr. Chowdhury has been involved in various collaborative research projects, supervising graduate and undergraduate students. Throughout his academic career, he has developed and taught a wide variety of courses, including international finance, development economics, macroeconomics and microeconomics. His experience teaching across various institutions has enabled him to develop a distinctive teaching pedagogy that fosters engaging classroom discussions and inspires his students to learn more, regardless of whether the subject matter is quantitative or qualitative.

He has a passion and dedication for educating and is widely acknowledged as an enthusiastic, energetic, and innovative teacher who tries to inspire his students. He regards teaching as a great privilege and a responsibility. He creates a secure learning environment for his students where mistakes are considered a natural part of the learning process.

A great supporter of experiential learning, Dr. Chowdhury seamlessly bridges abstract economic theories with real-world applications. He has been a mentor for the Bank of Canada’s Governor Challenge Competition, guiding over 45 students' journeys in mastery of monetary policy and interest rate decisions. A noteworthy characteristic of Dr. Chowdhury’s teaching philosophy is his commitment to continuous improvement.

Beverly Gaudet, senior teaching professor and student navigator in the faculty of nursing, will receive a Dr. Allan P. Stuart Memorial Award for Excellence in Teaching on Wednesday, May 15 in Fredericton. Professor Gaudet joined UNB in 2003 and, over the past 20 plus years, has held positions as a nurse clinician, senior instructor, interim undergraduate program director, and academic advisor. In addition to her teaching and advising responsibilities, she is currently working toward obtaining a Doctor of Philosophy in education studies from UNB.

A recipient of the 2020-21 UNB Merit Award, Teaching Professor Gaudet leads her students through clinical, lab and classroom settings guided by her background in pediatric and emergency nursing. She ensures her students can bring empathy to their profession by incorporating community groups such as the Fredericton Community Centre Food Bank and the Department of Social Development into their clinical practicum courses.

She educates not only nursing students but also plays a large role in mentoring nursing educators to appreciate the context of our student learners in a complex health care environment. She has been a frequent presenter at UNB Faculty of Nursing Curriculum Days and developed an instructional video on supporting clinical learning for nursing students with disabilities.

Teaching Professor Gaudet develops trust with students and learns where the successes, challenges, and ableist barriers exist in higher learning. Through a coaching model, she emphasizes the value of practice to gain confidence with new knowledge and skills. In her navigator role she is committed to ensuring students have the right supports in place at the right time.

She aims to foster curiosity within students to encourage perseverance in nursing situations that are not straight forward. She strives to make content and clinical meaningful and relevant, and to promote depth and accuracy of understanding that will guide her students’ decision-making when working with clients and families.

Dr. Kenneth B. Kent will receive the UNB Award for Excellence in Research on Thursday, May 16. Dr. Kent is a full professor and the Barrett Chair in Entrepreneurship for Digital Transformation in the faculty of computer science at the University of New Brunswick.

Dr. Kent’s extensive research in computer runtime technology and computer-aided hardware design has generated considerable positive practical results. His long collaboration with IBM, particularly on Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and Open Managed Runtimes (OMR), has resulted in speedier large-scale computations by IBM servers around the world. Dr. Kent co-founded and directs the Centre for Advanced Studies–Atlantic (CSA–Atlantic) at UNB, which conducts research on software for multicore computer systems. In 2016, IBM recognized him as Faculty Fellow of the Year, and twice the company presented him with its Project of the Year award.

Dr. Kent’s research includes important work on the computer-aided design of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chips, also leading to important practical applications.

His numerous papers are cited extensively, and he has earned awards from highly regarded conferences and journals and a visiting professorship from a national academic organization in Germany. He was honoured by the Chinese Academy of Sciences with its President’s International Fellowship Initiative Visiting Scientist Award, presented annually to only five awardees.

Dr. Kent’s dedication to excellence in academics and business, his leadership and his supervision and mentoring of students have encouraged others to take a similar approach and have attracted significant research support to the university.