Professional News

UK's Brent Seales Wins SEC Faculty Achievement Award

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 31, 2016) — Brent Seales, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science and director of the Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments (Vis Center) at the University of Kentucky, has been named a 2016 SEC Faculty Achievement Award winner.  

These annual awards recognize faculty members from every SEC university who have outstanding records in teaching, research and scholarship. To be eligible for the SEC Faculty Achievement Award, the individual must be a teacher or scholar at an SEC university; have achieved the rank of full professor; have a record of extraordinary teaching; and have a record of scholarship that is recognized nationally and/or internationally.

"It is such an honor to be part of so accomplished a group of faculty from across the SEC," Seales said. "It reminds me again that the University of Kentucky - with the encouragement of so many amazing colleagues, the excellence of our students, and inspiring leadership - is a very special place indeed."

Seales, a former visiting scientist at Google, conducts research centered around computer vision and visualization applied to challenges in the restoration of antiquities, surgical technology and data visualization.

Combining his experience in computer science with an interest in the humanities, Seales has created a revolutionary virtual unwrapping tool that can help uncover text from ancient scrolls non-invasively. In 2015, he and his research team identified the oldest known copy of the book of Leviticus (other than the Dead Sea Scrolls), carbon dated to the fifth century C.E. Christianity Today called it the most significant discovery in biblical archaeology in 2015.

Seales' research has been funded by Google, the National Science Foundation, the Mellon Foundation and the U.S. Army. He has received more than $10 million in funding during the past 10 years and is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. He is also a UK Alumni Association Great Teacher Award recipient.

SEC Faculty Achievement Award winners receive a $5,000 honorarium from the Southeastern Conference and become his or her university’s nominee for the SEC Professor of the Year Award. The SEC Professor of the Year, to be named in April, receives an additional $15,000 honorarium and will be recognized at the SEC Awards Dinner. 

Selected by a committee of SEC Provosts, the SEC Faculty Achievement Awards and the SEC Professor of the Year Award are part of SECU, the academic initiative of the Southeastern Conference, which sponsors, supports and promotes collaborative higher education programs and activities involving administrators, faculty and students at its 14 member universities.

A full list of 2016 SEC Faculty Achievement Award recipients is available at http://www.thesecu.com/news/sec-announces-2016-faculty-achievement-award-winners/

UK is the University for Kentucky. At UK, we are educating more students, treating more patients with complex illnesses and conducting more research and service than at any time in our 150-year history. To read more about the UK story and how you can support continued investment in your university and the Commonwealth, go to: uky.edu/uk4ky. #uk4ky #seeblue

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Harder, 859-323-2396, whitney.harder@uky.edu