2024 Teaching and Staff Award Recipients

Leeds faculty do more than just teach—they encourage, mentor and advocate for their students. And staff show up every day to help students achieve their goals throughout their Leeds’ experience. Each year faculty and staff are recognized for their contributions to the Leeds community. Here are this year’s award recipients.

Frascona Teaching Excellence Award

Assistant Professor Henry Laurion, teaches financial accounting in the MBA program and received the Frascona Teaching Excellence Award this year for inspiring students and creating a lasting impact in their lives. The award has been conferred to faculty at Leeds since 1992 to acknowledge professors who go above and beyond in educating the next generation of leaders.

“I appreciate my excellent MBA students for nominating me and helping me win the award through their active engagement in my class,” says Laurion. “In class, we enjoy applying financial accounting rules to real-world financial statements of public companies. Financial Accounting is the only course I teach, so I am able to stay free from distractions and provide more focused attention to my students.”

 Laurion graduated from Leeds with both a B.S. and M.S. in Business Administration with a focus in accounting. After graduating, he worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Denver from 2008 to 2013, after which he obtained a PhD in accounting from UC Berkeley. He studies public companies' financial statements and disclosures and has been teaching in the Leeds MBA program since 2018. His real-world experience is something he brings into the classroom and to mentoring students.

“I offer office hours and one-on-one meetings to help individual students who want more help or want to analyze a company’s financial statements beyond the standard course material,” explains Laurion. “It helps that my students are engaged and actively participating in lectures and class discussions.”

Innovative Teaching Award

Jeremiah Contreras, a teaching assistant professor in accounting, received the 2024 David B. Balkin, Rosalind, and Chester Barnow Endowed Innovative Teaching Award.

“Our Leeds community is filled with incredibly talented faculty who are continually pushing the boundaries of the classroom experience. To be selected for this award is humbling and inspires me to continue finding new ways of having a positive impact in the classroom,” he says. 

Contreras is committed to preparing students for working with cutting-edge technology. By exploring AI in his own courses, Contreras believes Leeds students will have the necessary skills “to thrive in an AI-assisted world.”

“My focus is on addressing the rise of generative AI and its impact on education,” he explains. “Leeds has the opportunity to be at the forefront of innovative teaching, setting an example for higher education as a whole.”

“I’m actively involved with others at Leeds to develop best practices of integrating AI in a responsible way. One goal is offering seminars and workshops so faculty can determine how they might integrate these powerful tools while maintaining academic integrity and encouraging critical thinking.” 

Contreras joined the Leeds accounting faculty in 2017 and is an active CPA. His background is in auditing with KPMG and consulting for business management and systems. He now teaches accounting courses across undergraduate and graduate programs and thinks about how to set students up for success as they go into their careers.

“The business landscape is changing, and this requires that we fundamentally rethink how we prepare students for the careers of tomorrow,” Contreras says. “I envision Leeds as a leader in this transformation, providing our students with the skills and critical thinking that will be required to thrive in an AI-assisted world. My goal is to ensure our students leave Leeds not just competitive, but well-positioned as thought leaders in their fields.” 

This year’s Balkin award finalists included Joshua Nunziato of SRS for his March Debate Madness tournament that exposes students to dichotomous business ethics dilemmas. The event teaches ethical principles, clarity of communication, professionalism, argumentation, and the ability to support a view one may not hold. Emily Edwards (of Marketing) and Shaun Davies (of Finance), for their EMBA cross-disciplinary Innovation Project, which has become the de facto first-year capstone of the EMBA assignment. In the class, EMBA student teams work with real clients to enhance existing processes or provide new business opportunities.

Leeds Values Award

Among a group of new awards for outstanding faculty and staff, the Leeds Values Award recognizes a member of the faculty and a member of the staff for being champions of Leeds’ values. 

Meghan Van Portfliet is a teaching assistant professor in Social Responsibility and Sustainability. Her research centers on the topics of whistleblowing and organization ignorance, and she has spoken about her work globally. This year she is the recipient of the 2024 Leeds Values Award for Faculty.

Shireen Miller is the program assistant for the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative Collegiate Program. She is responsible for supporting the faculty director and helping the program grow to offer more opportunities and events for business students to gain ethical decision-making skills that will serve them in their careers and lives. This year she is the recipient of the 2024 Leeds Values Award for Staff.