Fox Faculty Award

Lisa Rew

Lisa Rew, professor in the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, is the recipient of the Fox Faculty Award. The award is intended to reward faculty who are outstanding in teaching, research, scholarship, creativity and mentorship. Sponsored by the Martin Fox family and the Office of Academic Affairs, this award comes with a $3,325 honorarium.  

Rew built the department's Introduction to Land Resources and Environmental Sciences course, designing it to incorporate hands-on exercises and field trips. Her upper division and graduate classes start with a week of hands-on field learning. Her instruction style results in above-average student evaluation scores, testifying to her high regard among students.  

She has mentored dozens of students in research projects, hired them for summer field positions and guided them in writing their own grants. 

“Dr. Rew’s dedication to mentoring is demonstrated by numerous hours mentoring undergraduate and graduate students alike on field and lab research techniques and teaching,” said Sreekala Bajwa, vice president of agriculture and dean of the College of Agriculture. “Her students often speak of her detailed attention to ethical science, effective communication and a dedicated approach to the peer review process, which is a central theme of her mentoring.” 

Rew’s research on the ecology of invasive weeds has been described as “stellar,” “truly outstanding” and “world-renowned." With over 80 peer-reviewed papers and nearly $7 million in research funding, she has explored how sampling strategies can predict the distribution of invasive weeds across ranges, wildlands and mountains how to prioritize invasive species management to create resilient native plant communities and how to identify dispersion patterns for plant propagules to mitigate their spread.