Professor Neelam Chandra Poudyal received the James R. Cox Professorship in recognition of his achievements as a faculty member in the School of Natural Resources. UT Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor John Zomchick honored Poudyal with the award on April 25.

The three-year award honors faculty members for excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service. It also includes a stipend for the recipient. Poudyal becomes the fourth faculty member from the School of Natural Resources to receive the professorship.

“I am very honored to receive this recognition and like to reaffirm my commitment to the scholarship of teaching and research at the University of Tennessee,” Poudyal says. “I dedicate this honor to my colleagues, students, and the leadership at SNR, Herbet College, and UTIA that continue to inspire and support me every day.”

Poudyal specializes in natural resources policy and human dimensions. He combines a variety of social science theory and methods to answer management and policy questions in natural resource conservation and management.

Poudyal has also received the 2023 UT AgResearch Dean’s Grantsmanship Award, the 2022 UTIA Mid-Career Faculty Research Excellence Award, the 2019 UTIA T.J. Whatley Distinguished Young Scientist Award, and the 2019 Gamma Sigma Delta Outstanding Award for Research. He was named a 2022-2023 Fulbright U.S. Scholar to Nepal.

Knoxville native James Cox helped establish professorships in 2002 for faculty in the arts, theater, biological and physical sciences, architecture, and forestry industries. Previous recipients from the School include Scott Schlarbaum, Don Hodges, and Emma Willcox.