Huang recognized with Undergraduate Program Leadership Award

Sharon Huang Credit: ProvidedAll Rights Reserved.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Sharon Huang, associate professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), is the recipient of the 2022 Undergraduate Program Leadership Award. 

The award recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated exemplary leadership benefiting a Penn State undergraduate degree program. Specifically, it recognizes those individuals who have major responsibilities for the delivery of undergraduate education within a unit and who are providing leadership that has transformed or revitalized the undergraduate program in some way. 

Nominators praised Huang’s work as program coordinator for the applied option of Penn State’s data sciences undergraduate degree. The program began in 2015 but the number of data sciences students in the College of IST saw little growth in its first few years. Under Huang’s leadership, it grew from 30 to more than 150 students.  

Data sciences is a complex program which comprises three options supported by three colleges, the Applied option in the College of IST, the Computational option in the College of Engineering, and the Statistical Modeling option in the Eberly College of Science. Nominators said Huang is up to the task of overseeing such a complex arrangement while grappling with rapid growth. Huang is credited with working closely with various administrative units to ensure a smooth expansion. She also teaches several courses within the program, assists with development of new courses,  and led the creation of a common exam for assessing a prescribed core course in the program. 

Huang also made access to the program by 2+2 students easier by helping make three courses available via the Digital Learning Cooperative so that students who attend Commonwealth campuses their first two years have access to these courses. 

She is also a dedicated leader and mentor, nominators said. Huang has either chaired or served on several faculty search committees. She is the mentor to three junior tenure-track faculty members and is actively engaged with her mentees. 

“The Data Sciences program at Penn State is gaining national and international visibility, partially evidenced by inquiries from parents all over the country, colleagues in other institutions who aspire to build a data science program like the one at Penn State, and enrollment by both national and international students,” a nominator said. “Both prospective and current students are excited about the undergraduate data sciences curriculum, and they proactively provide feedback to Dr. Huang.” 

Last Updated April 11, 2022