Professor of Accounting Dennis Patten and Professor of Biophysics Craig Gatto have been named University Professors at Illinois State. They will be honored with the award during the Founders Day Convocation on Feb. 19.
Patten joined the Department of Accounting faculty in 1985 and was promoted to the rank of professor in 1997. Patten has achieved national and international recognition for his scholarly research in the area of accounting-related corporate social responsibility, and more specifically, corporate social and environmental accounting. He has addressed major international conferences in such places as Scotland and New Zealand, and has been invited to give presentations at the prestigious Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. With more than 50 articles in academic research journals, he is one of the most cited authors in his field.
Patten has taught a wide variety of courses across the accounting curriculum and also taught the Foundation of Inquiry course for eight years. He is consistently recognized by his students and faculty peers as an outstanding teacher and has received nine awards for outstanding teaching from the Department of Accounting, College of Business and student associations.
Gatto joined Illinois State as an assistant professor of cell biology and biophysics in 2000. Since that time, Gatto has received grant funding of more than $4 million from competitive sources such as the National Science Foundation and the American Heart Association. He has published 26 manuscripts in some of the top journals in the field, and serves as a permanent panel member on a prestigious National Institutes study section. Gatto has given 18 invited seminars nationally, and recently spent two weeks in Denmark where he was invited to study Lycopersicon Ca-ATPase. At the university level, Gatto received the University Research Initiative Award in 2001 and the Outstanding University Researcher Award in 2010.
A true teacher-scholar, Gatto is well known for his outstanding teaching and mentoring of students both within the classroom and the lab. He has mentored a large number of undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students in his laboratory. Many of these students have continued on to the best medical and graduate schools in the nation. As director of the School of Biological Sciences, Gatto has worked to update curriculum so students receive a comprehensive educational experience. Along with his service to Illinois State, Gatto contributes his time and talents in volunteering, and was awarded the College Service Award.
