The 2025 Outstanding Teaching Awards: Leonie Bettel

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 25, 2025) — Leonie Bettel, a doctoral candidate and graduate assistant in the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering at the University of Kentucky, is one of nine winners to receive the University of Kentucky’s 2025 Outstanding Teaching Awards.

These awards identify and recognize individuals who demonstrate special dedication to student achievement and who are successful in their teaching. Recipients were selected via nomination and reviewed by a selection committee based in the UK Provost’s Office for Faculty Advancement and the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching.

An international student from Vienna, Austria, Bettel is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Pigman College’s Department of Civil Engineering. As a graduate teaching assistant, Bettel has served in multiple roles across the college’s First-Year Engineering (FYE) program, which supports first-year undergraduates who are pursuing degrees in engineering and computer science.

“I feel incredibly humbled, excited and motivated to have been nominated for this award,” Bettel said. “When I first learned about the nomination, I could hardly believe it — receiving recognition at this level from the University of Kentucky is truly an honor. It means so much to know that the time and energy I’ve invested in teaching first-year engineering students and in building meaningful connections with them is not only making an impact but is also being recognized.”

Since Fall 2023, Bettel has worked as the senior teaching assistant for the program, serving as a lead instructor for many courses and partnering with the FYE faculty team. Douglass S. Kalika, Ph.D., director of the program, and L. Sebastian Bryson, Ph.D., chair and professor civil engineering, say Bettel quickly established herself as one of the most effective graduate teaching assistants in the FYE program, both in terms of her mastery of the course material and in facilitating student learning in the classroom.

“(Bettel) is well-respected by her students as a teacher who has a detailed understanding of the course content, and who is highly supportive of their efforts as they navigate the challenges of their initial coursework in the Pigman College of Engineering,” Kalika and Bryson said in their nomination letter. “Without question, Leo is an outstanding role model for our first-year engineering students, and a strong and energetic advocate for their success.”

Bettel says her motivation for teaching stems from a natural inclination to help others and a passion for making complex concepts accessible.

“I’ve always valued instructors who genuinely care about their students beyond just academic performance, and I strive to create that same supportive environment in my classroom,” she said.

As a doctoral student, Bettel works under Professor James Fox, Ph.D., pursuing research focusing on sediment transport in karst watersheds. She first came to UK as a transfer student and student-athlete in 2017, graduating cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in 2019 and then earning her master’s degree in 2021.

The Outstanding Teaching Award is not Bettel’s first award at UK — in 2023 she was also recognized with the “Outstanding Teaching Assistant” award for the Pigman College of Engineering, as well as the “Outstanding Civil Engineering Ph.D. Student” award.

“I’ve been fortunate to learn from incredible faculty while serving as a teaching assistant and have integrated many of their effective strategies into my teaching,” Bettel said. “I’m especially grateful to my advisor, Dr. Fox, whose support and encouragement allowed me the freedom to lead my own classes and grow as an educator.”

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This year’s Outstanding Teaching Awards were given to six faculty and three graduate teaching assistants. Each winner received an award certificate, a commemorative engraved gift and a cash award in recognition of their teaching excellence at a campus ceremony on May 1. Read more here.