Zavala honored for elevating engineering and people

On April 29, 2026, Grainger Dean Devesh Ranjan hosted a celebration at which he recognized engineering faculty and staff for outstanding daily work that shapes the heart of our college.

Victor Zavala, the Baldovin-DaPra Professor in chemical and biological engineering, received the Culture Champion Award for faculty.

Zavala is a culture building educator with a deep commitment to the Wisconsin Idea. His creativity and generosity have broadened not only the reach of chemical engineering, but also that of our college.

Taking a radically new approach to the way statistics is taught in engineering, he created a groundbreaking course that bridges fundamental knowledge and engineering practice, along with a modern textbook that a colleague describes in this way: “It speaks our native language, reframing statistics not as an auxiliary tool, but as a foundational modeling paradigm intrinsic to how we understand, design and make decisions in complex systems familiar to engineers.”

Zavala also has partnered with the Field Day Lab to create the K-2 video games Lakeland and Bloom, which help thousands of young learners understand systems thinking and environmental stewardship. He regularly accepts PhD student invitations to present seminars at institutions nationwide and, through his broad social media reach and widely followed “Unsolicited Advice for Young Scientists” series on LinkedIn, he provides perspective, advice and mentorship to students and early career researchers around the world.