Cooper, Ickert-Bond, George named 2023 Usibelli Award winners

The University of Alaska Fairbanks has announced the winners of the 2023 Emil Usibelli Distinguished Teaching, Research and Service Awards.

The Distinguished Teaching Award will go to Amy Cooper, assistant professor and accounting program director at the College of Business and Security Management. The Distinguished Research Award will be presented to Steffi Ickert-Bond, professor of botany in the College of Natural Science and Mathematics and curator of the UA Museum of the North herbarium. John George, professor and head of the fire science program at the UAF Community and Technical College, will receive the Distinguished Service Award.

The Usibelli Award recipients will be honored on May 11 at the university’s annual Blue and Gold Celebration. Tickets are available on the event website.

Cooper began her career more than two decades ago in accounting firms in Washington and Alaska. She also worked as an adjunct instructor before joining the UAF faculty in 2009.

In multiple letters of support, Cooper’s students describe her as a creative, enthusiastic and inspiring teacher who is dedicated to their success.

Outside the classroom, she has advised UAF’s student accounting organization and its volunteer tax assistance program. She also helped create an annual student seminar and dinner to promote professional etiquette and leads the Alaska Society of CPAs’ effort to connect students to the profession. Cooper also serves as the university’s faculty athletic representative. As such, she advocates for athletes and the athletics programs and works on NCAA rule compliance.

Cooper has a bachelor’s degree from Birmingham-Southern College and a master’s degree from the University of Washington. She recently received a doctorate in business administration from the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Ickert-Bond joined the UAF Department of Biology and Wildlife faculty and became herbarium curator at the UA Museum of the North in 2006.

Ickert-Bond has earned an international reputation for her research on plant systematics, biogeography and floristics using museum collections. Her work offers a comprehensive view of Alaska plants: their classification, distribution, ancient migration history and evolutionary relationships.

Ickert-Bond has also been at the forefront of digitizing plant data and images. The result is a massive collaborative online database, offering scientists, policymakers and members of the public a wide variety of detailed information about 300,000 plant specimens from Alaska and the Russian Far East. In addition, she was an early innovator in online instruction, and university teachers across the nation used her course materials extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Ickert-Bond has an undergraduate degree from the Berlin University of Applied Sciences and Technology and masters’ and doctoral degrees from Arizona State University.

George, who has worked 32 years in fire services, became head of the UAF Community and Technical College’s fire science program in 2008.

After joining CTC’s fire science program, George helped establish and found the initial grant funding for a system to place student firefighters at local volunteer fire departments. He also ramped up student recruiting, particularly in Washington state. Both efforts alleviated a severe staffing shortage at local volunteer fire stations. George also embedded training on mental health care, suicide prevention and cancer prevention in the CTC fire science program’s curriculum.

In tandem with his university work, George serves as a volunteer battalion chief at Chena Goldstream Fire and Rescue, a member of both local and Alaska firefighting professional organizations, a fire training consultant and an instructor. He has worked as a certifying officer for the State of Alaska Division of Training and Life Safety.

George has an associate degree in municipal fire protection and a bachelor’s degree in education, both from UAF. He is pursuing a master’s degree in security and disaster management.

The Usibelli Awards are among the university’s most prestigious awards. They are funded annually from an endowment that Usibelli Coal Mine established in 1992. Each year, a committee that includes members from the UAF faculty, the student body and the UA Foundation board of directors evaluates the nominees. Each winner receives a cash award of $10,000.

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