The University of Idaho Department of Athletics is extending a Thank You to the faculty and staff at Saturday's basketball doubleheader. Faculty and staff are admitted free (they need to pick up a ticket either at the Kibbie Dome by the end of the day Friday or at the West End Ticket Booth on game day). Tipoff for the doubleheader, which features the Vandal women vs. Utah State and the men vs. Hawai'i, is 5:30 p.m. Additional tickets may be purchased for $5. Here are a few of the many achievements of the faculty and staff at the University of Idaho.

• Mickey Gunter (Geology professor) - Gunter has been honored by the International Mineralogical Association by having a newly discovered mineral named after him, the Gunterite.
• Rebecca "Becky" Tallent (JAMM Assistant Professor) - Received the SPJ Diversity Leadership Fellowship in 2007.
• David N. McIlroy, Ph.D.(Dept. of Physics Professor and Chair) - Dyess Faculty Fellow, COS (2011-2014)
• Jie Chen (Dean of the College of Graduate Studies) - Received the William Borah Distinguished Professor of Political Science Award
• John "Jack" Morris Ph.D. (CBE Dean and Professor of Operations Management) - Received the First Interstate Bank Excellence in Teaching Award
• Dana Stover Ph.D. (Assistant Dean, Recruitment & Retention, Associate Professor of Management and Human Resources) - Alumni Award for Excellence
• Miranda S. Anderson (College of Art & Architecture Assistant Professor, Design Resource Center Coordinator) - Grow Smart Award - Mixed-use Category, Idaho Smart Growth, State of Idaho. Award presented to the Anderson Group, LLC for the Jackson Street Grain Elevators preservation and development concept in recognition of the successful use of smart growth principles, November 2008.
• Matthew Brehm (College of Art and Architecture Associate Professor) - Hoffman Award for Teaching Excellence, University of Idaho, 2010
• Steven Hollenhorst (College of Natural Resources, Professor Department of Conservation Social Sciences) - 2010 C. Peter Magrath/W.K. Kellogg Foundation Engagement Award- Building Sustainable Communities Initiative
• Sachin Jain (University of Idaho Coeur d'Alene Professor of Counseling) - Earned the prestigious American Educational Research Association's (AERA) Outstanding Dissertation in Counseling Award for his investigation of math and test anxiety
• Aaron Thomas (Associate professor of chemical engineering) - Received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
• Sanford Eigenbrode (Professor of Chemical Ecology and Division Chair of Entomology) - In February 2011, Dr. Eigenbrode was awarded a $20 million grant and serves as Project Director for the Regional Approaches to Climate Change (REACCH) in Pacific Northwest Agriculture, a coordinated agriculture project funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
• Lisette Waits (Wildlife Professor) - Waits recently returned from Nepal where she worked on the collaborative Nepal Tiger Genome Project, a new, two-year research project launched by the government of Nepal and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to conserve tigers in the Terai Arc Landscape.
• Margrit von Braun (University of Idaho professor emerita of chemical engineering and environmental science) - Worked to decontaminate compounds and ponds to stop lead poisoning from killing children in Nigerian villages.
• Zaid Abo (Assistant professor of mathematics, statistics and bioinformatics) - He is creating software that categorizes the countless number of different microbes crucial to human development, physiology, immunity and nutrition. The bioinformatics core is supported by the Initiative for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies (IBEST) - a collaboration of scientists who apply their diverse talents to health questions too grand for any one scientific field to solve. They receive funding from an extensive five-year Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant, which totals nearly $9.5 million.
• Joseph Cloud (Professor of biological science) - Working on producing a sockeye salmon from combining a male and female rainbow trout. Sockeye salmon from Redfish Lake are endangered, part of the reason why Cloud is trying to ensure their future
• Paul Joyce, Holly Wichman and Craig Miller (All faculty in the College of Science) - Focusing on understanding and predicting virus mutation, which can help understand viruses like HIV and H1N1.