Horzempa named W.Va. Professor of Year
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WEST LIBERTY -- The Faculty Merit Foundation announced that West Liberty University associate professor Joseph Horzempa, PhD, has been selected for its 2017 Professor of the Year award. The Foundation presented the award on Thursday, during a banquet held in the Great Hall of the Culture Center in Charleston.
"I congratulate Joe and thank the Faculty Merit Foundation, Bowles Rice and Graystone Consulting for supporting this prestigious honor. Joe is a first-class professor whose research has gained him national attention. He offers our students unparalleled opportunities for research in an active microbiology laboratory. West Liberty University is proud of him," said WLU President Stephen Greiner.
Horzempa is an associate professor of biology and the program director of West Liberty University's newest graduate degree, the MA/MS in biology. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from California University of Pennsylvania, both majoring in science. He received his doctoral degree from Duquesne University in 2006.
Since joining the WLU faculty in 2011, Horzempa has received more than $2.2 million in grants to support the activities of his lab. He and his students continue his work on developing new antibiotics and vaccines as they research the biology of the bacterium, Francisella tularensis. He has been researching this bacterium since he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine from 2006 to 2011.
Horzempa's work has been published in a variety of scholarly and scientific journals, including the "International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents," "Journal of Plant Pathology & Microbiology" and "American Journal of Virology." A lifetime member of the West Virginia Academy of Science, he is editor-in-chief of its open access, online, peer-reviewed scientific journal, "Proceedings of the West Virginia Academy of Science."
Horzempa has twice been named as West Liberty University's Professor of the Year. Likewise, 2017 marks the second consecutive year he's been named a West Virginia Professor of the Year finalist.
A native of Monaca Pa., Horzempa and his wife, Crystal, are the parents of two children, Gwen, 11 and Jack, 8. He now resides in Scott Township, Pa.
The other four finalists for the award included Eric Blough, PhD, exercise pharmaceutical sciences and research professor, Marshall University; Kathy Hawks, EdD, education professor, Concord University; Carol Plautz, PhD, biology professor, Shepherd University; and Timothy Warner, PhD, geology and geography professor, West Virginia University.
A $10,000 cash award is given to the candidate selected as Professor of the Year, with smaller awards to the other finalists. Financial support is provided from Bowles Rice LLP and Graystone Consulting.