Brian Arbogast

Brian Arbogast, a professor in UNCW's Department of Biology and Marine Biology, is among the 17 outstanding faculty members in the UNC System selected to receive one of the 2022 Awards for Excellence in Teaching.

The award is presented annually by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors "to highlight the importance of teaching and recognize the extraordinary contributions of faculty members from all 16 of North Carolina’s public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics," according to a news release.

Nominated by special committees at each institution and selected by the Board of Governors Committee on Educational Planning, Policies and Programs, each winner receives a commemorative bronze medallion and a $12,500 cash prize.

"I am deeply honored to receive this award and consider it to be one of the true highlights of my academic career,” said Arbogast, who joined UNCW in 2008, in the release. “I want to thank UNCW for all of the support I have received during my time here, and to acknowledge the many wonderful students I’ve had over the years."

Arbogast has more than 20 years of experience in research and academia. His research includes biodiversity exploration and conservation of mammals of the Sumaco Volcano region in the eastern Andes of Ecuador; the evolution, biogeography and conservation of gliding mammals; and conservation genetics of endangered species in the southeastern U.S.

Since 2012, Arbogast has served as the assistant director of the Wildsumaco Biological Station, which lies on the slopes of Sumaco Volcano in Ecuador. From 2013-18, he was a research associate in mammalogy at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. 

Arbogast was appointed to the North Carolina Scientific Council on Mammals in 2020. He also served as the UNCW Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee chair.

In 2019, Arbogast received the UNCW Distinguished Teaching Professorship and was named the chair of the Conservation Committee of the American Society of Mammalogists. That same year, he helped obtain $30,000 in matching funding to construct new laboratory and teaching classroom buildings at Wildsumaco Biological Station.

Arbogast earned his bachelor’s and Ph.D. in biology from Wake Forest University and a master’s in zoology from Louisiana State University.