CEE Teaching Assistant Professor EJ Ignacio has received the Career Influencer Award from the University of Illinois Office of the Provost. This newly established award recognizes faculty and staff who have made a significant and lasting impact on students' academic journeys, career development, and post-graduation goals. CEE Professor Jeremy Guest was aslo recognized as an Honorable Mention. Learn more >>
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EJ Ignacio, right, receives his award from Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Kevin Jackson.
Teaching Assistant Professor EJ Ignacio has received the Career Influencer Award from the University of Illinois Office of the Provost. This newly established award recognizes faculty and staff who have made a significant and lasting impact on students' academic journeys, career development, and post-graduation goals.
The award is given to faculty and staff who are mentioned ten or more times by students in the Illini Success survey, which is an annual survey distributed to bachelor's degree recipients to collect, summarize, and share information about post-graduation outcomes.
Ignacio was one of only eleven awardees who qualified for this honor across the entire Champaign-Urbana campus and was the only awardee from The Grainger College of Engineering.
Jeremy Guest
The Office of the Provost also recognized CEE Professor Jeremy Guest, who was named to the award's Honorable Mentions list. Faculty received the Honorable Mention status for being named five to nine times by students in the Illini Success survey.
The Career Influencer awardees were recognized at the Student Success Symposium held February 5, 2026 on the U of I campus.
At the Symposium, Ignacio was also part of an inter-disciplinary team that received the Best Poster award, alongside fellow CEE Assistant Teaching Professor Jacob Henschen. Their poster, "Developing a Community of Practice Among First-Year Course Practitioners” came as the result of a Strategic Instructional Innovation Program (SIIP) funded project led by Grainger Engineering Assistant Dean Brain Woodard. The project has created a community of practice within Grainger College of Engineering to identify best practices for first-year courses and eventually disseminate these pedagogical techniques to all courses across the college. The project team consists of representatives from eight of the twelve engineering departments.
Alongside Ignacio, Henschen, and Woodard, contributors to the poster included Ali Ansari, Molly Goldstein, Kellie Halloran, Keilin Jahnke, Olga Mironenko, Jonathan Schuh, Murillo Soranso, and graduate student Kripa Damania.
U of I Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Kevin Jackson presents the Best Poster Award to members of the winning team, including Brian Woodard, Jacob Henschen, EJ Ignacio, and ECE Teaching Assistant Professor Olga Mironenko.