College Honors 2024-25 LeRoy and Elva Martin Award Recipients

Logan Opperman, assistant teaching professor in the Department of Statistics, and Arianna Soldati, assistant professor in the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, have been honored by the College of Sciences with the 2024-25 LeRoy and Elva Martin Award for Teaching Excellence.

The Martin Award recognizes the outstanding contributions of early career faculty to the College of Sciences’ teaching mission. The award was created in 2001 by the late LeRoy Martin Jr., a longtime mathematics professor at NC State, to honor his parents, Elva and LeRoy Martin.

Edited excerpts from their nominations are below.

Logan Opperman joined the NC State faculty in 2019. Since then, he has earned a reputation among students and his peers as a kind and caring instructor who explains complex topics clearly and concisely. Recently, he has been shifting his courses away from a formula-focused model towards a model that is more interpretation-based and employs hands-on data. Evaluations have noted how this example-based approach has helped students quickly understand the course material. He has also served on several college and university education committees.

Arianna Soldati joined the NC State faculty in 2020. She is a volcanologist and has become known for using virtual reality technology to bring to her classes the remarkable field experience of collecting molten lava during active eruptions. She also redeveloped and modernized the mineralogy class to include clever applications of technology, and students have noted that the class promotes curiosity, creative thinking and self-confidence in the subject matter. Students have also benefited from her reorganization of the departmental mineral collection, transforming it into a valuable resource where students can go practice independently.

This post was originally published in College of Sciences News.