Cayelan Carey, Amy Pruden named Virginia Outstanding Faculty
Cayelan Carey and Amy Pruden were named Virginia Outstanding Faculty by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia in recognition of superior accomplishments in teaching, research, and public service.
The award is considered the commonwealth’s highest honor for faculty at public and private colleges and universities. Carey and Pruden were two of 12 recipients honored at a ceremony March 3 in Richmond.
Cayelan Carey
Carey, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and co-director of the Center for Ecosystem Forecasting, is a leader in freshwater ecology and ecosystem forecasting and credited with advancing predictive water quality systems now being deployed to safeguard drinking water supplies for millions of people.
She credits the relationships of mentoring and working with dozens of graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and technicians over the last decade to reaching significant research milestones. She is a Patricia Caldwell Faculty Fellow and was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Award for the Department of Biological Sciences in 2025.
Carey is committed to supporting Virginia Tech and the larger discipline, which includes five-plus years on the Commission on Research's Open Access Policy Working Group. The group developed a universitywide policy to increase access to Virginia Tech scholarly work that was recently approved by the Board of Visitors.
An affiliate with the Fralin Life Sciences Institute and Global Change Center for more than a decade, Carey serves as the faculty lead of Virginia Tech's Stream Team, a 50-year-old consortium of freshwater ecology faculty and students. She is credited as the founder and lead of Macrosystems EDDIE educational program, which has reached more than 100,000 undergraduate students at more than 50 universities and colleges globally.
Amy Pruden
Pruden, University Distinguished Professor in the Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the W. Thomas Rice Professor of Engineering, is a pioneering environmental engineering professor whose research helped define antibiotic resistance genes and waterborne pathogens as critical environmental and public health concerns. Her work has influenced global policy, national guidance, and real‑world crisis response.
Her journey began two decades ago, when she started testing rivers and streams for antibiotic resistance and realizing that wastewater effluent and farm runoff can elevate the levels in the water.
More recently, Pruden and her team began developing environmental surveillance tools to help keep a pulse of the spread of antibiotic resistance, identify drivers, and potential mitigation measures. According to Pruden, it is estimated given the current trajectory that deaths caused by antimicrobial resistance will eclipse those from cancer by 2050.
Pruden is one of five prominent international scientists who co-authored the final report "Bracing for Superbugs," which included input from more than 50 scientists around the world through a collaborative process. This report provides an urgently needed road map to help policymakers understand and implement effective action plans for combating antimicrobial resistance.
As a fellow of the International Water Association, Pruden actively works to promote education and awareness around topics related to water quality and sustainability.
Passionate about creating opportunities for interdisciplinary research and education, Pruden and her team have been active in developing and growing a prestigious National Science Foundation’s Research Traineeship at Virginia Tech, supported with a $3 million grant to stimulate institutional transformation towards establishing a convergent transdisciplinary doctoral program.
About the awards
Since 1987, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia has honored 474 faculty members with Virginia Outstanding Faculty awards, with almost 50 of them representing Virginia Tech. The nominees are selected by their institutions and their applications reviewed by a panel of peers. A committee of leaders from the public and private sectors selects the final recipients.
