Teresa Patricia Feria, PhD

Teresa Feria joined UT Pan American's, one of The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley legacy institutions, Biology Department as an Assistant Professor in 2008. Since then, Feria has been able to engage the community in her teaching, research, and service activities contributing in this way toward student success and UTRGVs’ strategic plan for “Transforming Lives”. Her culturally relevant courses include 30 hours of service and experiential learning activities that allow students to develop community engagement projects on topics related to improving the environment conditions and human health. Feria’s teaching, research, and service activities are focused on creating educational opportunities for national and international students, as well as to contributing to the needs of our communities. Her teaching, research, and service activities have been recognized with different awards. She won the Provost’s International Studies Award in 2011 and the Teaching Excellence Award from the College of Science and Mathematics in 2012. She was also a Kika de la Garza Education Science Fellow, a recognition of her impressive trajectory in teaching and research, in 2013. She has been part of one of the most prestigious international lists of researchers: SNI (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, Mexico) since 2014, where criteria for inclusion includes teaching and mentorship roles with undergraduate and graduate students. In the spring of 2018, she received the Outstanding International Female Faculty recognition at UTRGV as well as the Excellence Award in Community Engagement both in the College of Science and UTRGV in the same year. Feria was selected as the Engaged Scholar Fellow of UTRGV in November of 2018 and obtained the competitive and prestigious Fred W. and Frances H. Rusteberg Endowed Professor Fellowship for her research trajectory at UTRGV that same year. Feria has mentored more than 50 students who have presented their research, service-learning, and community engagement projects in local, regional, national, and international scientific meetings. Several of her students have obtained awards for their outstanding presentations. Feria works with multiple national and international collaborators, as well as with faculty from different disciplines at UTRGV across colleges, which has helped her students to be able to join graduate programs and the work force.