Read the full article with all 2025 Faculty and Staff Award Winners here.
Faculty Distinguished Achievement Awards
The Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award recognizes faculty members who have made contributions and demonstrated continued excellence in each of the three areas of teaching, research, and service.
James Wollack
Department of Educational Psychology
For more than two decades, Professor James Wollack has demonstrated exceptional leadership and impact in the field of educational measurement, test security, and assessment. Recognized as a global authority in test security, his pioneering research has shaped the way high-stakes testing programs detect and mitigate fraud, ensuring fairness and validity in educational and professional assessments. His groundbreaking contributions, including the development of statistical models for identifying test fraud, have influenced best practices worldwide and strengthened the integrity of standardized testing.
Beyond his research, Professor Wollack has been a dedicated mentor and educator. Despite holding full-time administrative responsibilities as director of Testing and Evaluation Services, he has remained deeply committed to graduate student training, advising numerous doctoral students who have gone on to earn prestigious awards and fellowships. His seminar on educational measurement has been widely praised for developing students’ analytical and professional communication skills. Professor Daniel Bolt describes Professor Wollack as “a true servant leader who has strengthened our department through his wisdom, conscientiousness, and modesty.”
Professor Wollack’s leadership within the School of Education has been nothing short of transformative. As chair of the Department of Educational Psychology from 2019 to 2024, he guided the department through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, fostering stability and cohesion. He has served on critical committees at the university, UW System, and national levels, contributing to educational policy, assessment practices, and the advancement of academic integrity. His leadership in Testing and Evaluation Services has directly influenced nearly one million Wisconsin students through placement testing and accommodations for students with disabilities.
For his remarkable scholarship, steadfast commitment to students, and distinguished service to the university and beyond, we are honored to present Professor James Wollack with the Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award.
Award for Community-Engaged Scholarship
The Award for Community-Engaged Scholarship honors an individual who advances the Wisconsin Idea to a new level of partnership and reciprocity.
Katie Eklund
Department of Educational Psychology
Professor Katie Eklund is a champion of students’ mental health.
A former school mental health professional, Professor Eklund’s research is grounded in the needs of schools and builds partnerships with educators, school mental health professionals, families, and children to support and promote equitable and just mental health services. An accomplished scholar and leader, Professor Eklund served as the co-director of the Madison Education Partnership from 2018-2024 and leads several other deeply impactful initiatives.
One of those is the Resilient Response to the Effects of Stress and Trauma (REST) program, which provides screening and mental health interventions for children in the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) who are grappling with traumatic stress. During the 2022-23 school year, REST screened nearly 3,000 students and linked nearly 700 children with relevant interventions.
Beth Vaade, senior executive director of the Research, Assessment & Improvement Department for MMSD, says Professor Eklund’s research is “not just in schools but with schools.”
“She brings her whole self to this work, building the partnerships that will ensure the relevance of her work and the impact of her findings,” Vaade says.
Professor Eklund is also principal investigator on a project that investigates the number of children accessing mental health services in Dane County, the effect of those services on academic and behavioral outcomes, and barriers and facilitators to services. According to Nelsie Stern of Journey Mental Health Center in Madison, Eklund’s leadership fostered a partnership for this project between communities and systems that have historically not worked together.
As Jennifer Asmus, chair of the Department of Educational Psychology, says: “The scope and positive influence of Dr. Eklund’s community-engaged research is challenging to overstate.”
For these reasons, we are pleased to present the Award for Community-Engaged Scholarship to Katie Eklund.