A UT geosciences professor won one of the most prestigious awards in teaching on Jan. 23.

Jay Banner, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and director of the Environmental Science Institute at UT, won the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching, an award given out to one teacher from any subject by Baylor University once every two years. With the honor, Banner won a monetary prize of $250,000.

“It’s really humbling,” Banner said. “It feels like an amazing culmination of a lot of work I put into both research and teaching. I ultimately feel really encouraged that there’s significant awards like this, because I really think it helps emphasize the importance of teaching.”

Along with his individual prize, Banner also won $25,000 for his department and will receive a furnished apartment in Waco to teach at Baylor for either the Fall 2024 or Spring 2025 semester. The money for the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences will be used primarily to hire someone to teach Banner’s courses while he’s teaching at Baylor, but also to support the research that students conduct in the classes Banner typically teaches.

Banner said he is excited to forge new connections at Baylor while still working on his projects at UT.

“I’m not sure what to expect,” Banner said. “I’m looking to be part of that community up there. I won’t just show up and teach and then go home. I really look forward to working with a lot of people on potential research projects (and) teaching things together.”

Claudia Mora, dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences at UT, cited Banner’s ‘Hot Science – Cool Talks’ as a project that made Banner stand out from other finalists of the award. The program, which Banner co-founded in 2000, invites guest speakers to talk about their research in front of a live audience. Banner said the program aims to make science more fun to students and he wants to continue running the talks, even when he’s teaching at Baylor.

“This program is one that Jay has really poured himself into for decades,” Mora said. “It’s very important to him that the public develop a curiosity and an understanding of the world around him, and so it’s a wonderful thing that he sees this as something he has to continue.”

Environmental science freshman Akanksha Mehta took one of Banner’s classes during the Fall 2023 semester and said he made the class fun by including examples from his personal life and finding different ways to connect with his students.

“(His class) really instilled a desire in me to want to be part of science and to really care about what’s going on in our world,” Mehta said. “He made sure all the students were very empowered by his lectures and that class overall.”

Banner said he doesn’t have plans for the monetary prize yet, but wants to give back to friends and the community.

“Maybe my favorite charities will be getting bigger checks than I usually send,” Banner said.