Art history educator UHCL’s nominee for statewide Piper Award

November 7, 2017 | Jim Townsend

Sarah Costello, assistant professor of art history, is University of Houston-Clear Lake’s nominee for the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation’s 2017-18 Piper Professor Award, an honor bestowed annually to 10 outstanding educators from Texas institutions of higher learning.

Costello has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in the College of Human Sciences and Humanities since 2014. Her research focus is the visual culture of the early periods of the Ancient Near East. She was the 2012 recipient of the University of Houston Provost’s Teaching Excellence Award.

Since 1958, the Piper Foundation has recognized professors throughout Texas for their work in and outside the classroom. UHCL finalists for nomination are chosen by students. From the finalists, a panel of students and faculty, equally divided between the UHCL’s four colleges, chooses the university’s nominee. The Piper Foundation, through a statewide selection committee, chooses 10 nominees for the award.

Costello was chosen as the nominee from a field that included nine other finalists:

College of Education:

• Renee Lastrapes, assistant professor of education research and assessment.
• Dilan Perera-Diltz, associate professor of counselor education.
• Randy Seevers, associate professor of special education.

College of Human Sciences and Humanities:

• Keith Parsons, professor of philosophy.
• Mary Short, professor of clinical psychology.

College of Science and Engineering:

• Hisham Al-Mubaid, associate professor of computer science and computer information systems.
• Gary Boetticher, associate professor of computer science, computer information systems, and software engineering.
• Khondker Shajadul Hasan, assistant professor of computer science.
• Robert Phalen, associate professor of industrial hygiene and safety.

Costello has a doctorate in anthropology from Binghamton University, State University of New York, a masters in classical and Near Eastern archaeology from Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia, and a bachelor’s degree in English from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.