Two Cal Poly Faculty Members to Receive the University’s Annual Distinguished Scholarship Award

SAN LUIS OBISPO – Cal Poly has chosen a professor of history and a professor of dairy science to receive the university’s Distinguished Scholarship Award for 2009-10, the seventh year for the award program.

History Professor George Cotkin and Dairy Science Professor Rafael Jiménez-Flores were recognized for serving as models for scholars in the humanities at Cal Poly and for demonstrating how the Cal Poly environment can foster interdisciplinary collaboration in the service of applied research.

They will be honored at spring commencement ceremonies Saturday, June 12, and will be recognized during the university’s Fall Conference General Session on Monday, Sept. 13.

Cotkin was chosen for his unflagging energy in investigating the intellectual history of the United States. He has established a national reputation as a historian who engages the difficult questions of ethics and morality in modern America. Cotkin challenges students by posing provocative and open-ended questions based on his studies of real-world issues.

Cotkin was recipient of the Cal Poly Distinguished Teaching Award in 1988-89, received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1991-92, and from January – June 1994 served as a senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of Rome.

Cotkin has been teaching at Cal Poly since 1980. He has served as the department’s graduate director since 2005. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history in 1972 from Brooklyn College, a master’s in United States Intellectual and Cultural History from The Ohio State University in 1973, and a doctorate in United States Intellectual and Cultural History in 1978 from The Ohio State University.

Jiménez-Flores was honored for his ability to apply sophisticated, interdisciplinary scientific methods to pragmatic issues in the field of food science. He and his colleagues have merged techniques and approaches from fields as diverse as industrial sanitation, food chemistry and molecular biology to investigate the role of spores as contaminants in milk. Through this interdisciplinary approach, he has forged partnerships across the colleges at Cal Poly.

Jiménez-Flores has procured more than $4.7 million in research funds, holds several patents, received the “Kraft/Milk Industry Foundation Teaching Award” in 2003 and received the “International Dairy Foods Association Research Award in Dairy Foods Processing” in 2009.

He has been teaching at Cal Poly since 1995. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a minor in food science and technology at the Universidad La Salle in 1981, a master’s in food science from Cornell University in 1984, and a doctorate in agricultural and environmental chemistry from the University of California at Davis in 1989.

The Distinguished Scholarship Award was established in 2003 to recognize faculty achievements in research, creative work and other professional development activities. The award supports research and other creative endeavors and encourages the professional growth of Cal Poly faculty members.

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