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Jill K. Singer, professor of earth sciences and director of the Undergraduate Research Office, has received the 2008 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, honoring her exceptional service to Buffalo State College and the State University of New York.

Chancellor’s Awards are system-level honors conferred to provide recognition for consistently superior professional achievement and to encourage the ongoing pursuit of excellence.

Singer has an outstanding research and publication record, which she has maintained while serving as a nationally recognized advocate of undergraduate research and creative activity. She is an active member of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) and served as chair of the Geosciences Division from 1998 to 2002 and as CUR president from 2003 to 2004. The National Science Foundation (NSF) recruited Singer to serve as a program director in the Division of Undergraduate Education from 2001 to 2003 and invited her to return for another two years (2007–2009).

Singer’s scholarly record reveals an impressive list of accomplishments. She has received grants totaling nearly $3.5 million from such funding agencies as the NSF and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and she is the author of numerous peer-reviewed papers in geology and undergraduate research. She was a speaker for the National Association of Geoscience Teachers Distinguished Lecture Series, and she has spent more than 20 years researching sediment dynamics and river restoration.

Singer travels extensively across the country to speak at conferences and workshops relating to establishing and institutionalizing undergraduate research programs. Singer has modeled such programs in her own research, and her publications often feature undergraduates as coauthors. In the past 20 years, she has mentored or co-mentored more than 40 undergraduates.

In addition to her national activities and leadership roles, Singer has remained a passionate promoter of undergraduate research at Buffalo State. She was appointed director of the Undergraduate Research Office in 2003. As director, she established many campuswide programs, including the annual Student Research and Creativity Celebration, which recently held its 10th annual symposium.

The Chancellor’s Award will be formally presented to Singer at the college’s Academic Convocation ceremony on September 25 in Rockwell Hall Auditorium.