last updated: Feb 22 2008
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The University of Texas at Austin
Executive Vice President and Provost

2008 Judge Biographies

Martha Hilley
Paul Jensen
Guy Raffa
Natasha Shcherbakova
Wendy Shapiro
Mary Steinhardt
Sharon Strover

Martha Hilley joined the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin School of Music in 1982 as Coordinator of Group Piano. In 1986, she became Keyboard Division Head and served in that position until 1989. From 1994-99, she served as Associate Director and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the School of Music.

Ms. Hilley has been active in workshops, conferences, and seminars on the international, national, state and local levels. She has taught for in Italy, Belgium, Hawaii, Australia, Norway and Austria. She has also served on the faculty of the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival in Alaska and the Summer Keyboard Institute at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan.

Professor Hilley's abilities as a teacher were recognized in 1983 when she received the Texas Excellence Teaching Award and again in 1988 when she was awarded one of four Dad's Association Centennial Fellowships for excellence in undergraduate teaching. In 1992, she was recipient of the prestigious Orpheus Award presented by Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia in recognition of her contributions to the field of music. The Texas Music Teachers Association named Ms. Hilley Outstanding Collegiate Teacher in 1997. In 1998 she was the first College of Fine Arts faculty member to be awarded the William Blunk Endowed Professorship.  In 2002, Professor Hilley was named as the first MTNA Foundation Fellow for the state of Texas.  In 2004 she was elected Vice President of the Music Teachers National Association.  Ms. Hilley was inducted into the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers in the fall of 2005.  In March of 2008, Professor Hilley will be awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the Music Teachers National Association.

Hilley's articles have been published in Clavier, PianoQuarterly and Keyboard Companion.  She is co-author of two college piano texts: Piano for the Developing Musician and Piano for Pleasure.  The texts were the first to embrace dedicated digital sequencer technology through disks furnished to teachers as well as the first to provide web-based computer tutorials.

Paul Jensen specializes in operations research, particularly with regard to applications in water resources management and manufacturing. He has served on the Cockrell School of Engineering faculty since 1967. He has four years of industrial experience, has published numerous technical articles and reports, and has authored or coauthored four books. Dr. Jensen won the IITAP Gold Award for Resource Development in 2006.

Guy P. Raffa (Ph.D. Indiana University, 1991) is Associate Professor of Italian at the University of Texas at Austin. His undergraduate degree is in computer science (B.S. Duke University, 1982). A teacher and scholar of medieval and modern Italian literature, he is the author of Divine Dialectic: Dante’s Incarnational Poetry (University of Toronto Press, 2000) and Danteworlds: A Reader’s Guide to the Inferno (University of Chicago Press, 2007). He received a President's Associates Teaching Excellence Award in 2002 and was the UT-Austin nominee for the UT-system Innovations in Education Award in 2007. His Danteworlds Web site won an IITAP Silver Award in 2003 (Inferno) and a Gold Award in 2007 (Purgatory and Paradise).

Wendy Shapiro serves as Director of Instructional Technology and Academic Computing at Case Western Reserve University working with faculty in the development of emerging technologies and supporting current technologies that enhance teaching and learning at Case. For over 15 years along with her administrative duties, Dr. Shapiro has been teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in the area of instructional technology. Most recently she was selected as a presidential fellow teaching for the SAGES program at Case. She has served as a consultant to the IBM Corporation and worked with the educational team at NASA Glenn Research Center. Dr. Shapiro is a published author, and has made numerous presentations on instructional technology and related topics throughout the United States.

Mary Steinhardt is a native of Smithfield, North Carolina and did her undergraduate work at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She then moved to Texas and completed her master’s work at Lamar University and doctoral work at the University of Houston while serving as Assistant Coach of the Women’s Volleyball Teams. She completed a year of post-doctoral research training at the University of Georgia and finally a Master of Arts in Professional Counseling at Southwest Texas State University. Currently, Dr. Steinhardt is Professor of Health Education at The University of Texas at Austin. She teaches a freshman leadership seminar, evaluation and research design, mind/body health, and theories of health behavior. She is the recipient of the First Annual Dean's Distinguished Teaching Award in the College of Education in 2002, the Texas Excellence Teaching Award giving by the Texas Exes Student Association in 2003, and selected to the Academy of Distinguished Teachers at The University of Texas in 2004. In 2007, she received the Robert Murff Excellence Award in recognition of outstanding support of career services at the University of Texas.

Dr. Steinhardt's research explores the determinants and methods for building resilience and strength when challenged with change and chronic stressful situations. Her resilience program, Transforming Lives Through Resilience Education, received a Bronze Award for Resource Development from the Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment at the University of Texas in 2006. Dr. Steinhardt has worked with such companies as 3M, Motorola, Dell, and Applied Materials, as well as Departments of Aging and Disability Services in Texas and the Army’s 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood. Her current research program focuses on resilient approaches to enhancing diabetes self-management and group support for African Americans.

Sharon Strover, Professor in the Radio-TV-Film Department at the University of Texas, teaches communications and telecommunications courses, directs the Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute, and chairs the Department of Radio-TV-Film Department. Some of her current research projects examine statewide networks and advanced broadband services, the digital divide, rural broadband deployment, e-government, telecommunications infrastructure deployment and economic development in rural regions, and market structure and policy issues for international audio-visual industries.

Dr. Strover has worked with the U.S. Federal Communication Commission, The Appalachian Regional Commission, the Office of Technology Assessment, the Rural Policy Institute, the Ford Foundation, the European Union, the Texas Public Utility Commission, the Department of Information Resources and Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Agriculture, the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund Board, and the Aspen Institute, among other organizations. She currently chairs the national Rural Policy Institute’s Telecommunications Panel, and also chairs the Communication Law and Policy Division of the International Communication Association. Dr. Strover also served as a member of Internet2’s Network Policy and Planning Advisory Committee.

She currently is on the editorial board of the journals Government Information Quarterly, the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media and The Information Society, and has published in various refereed journals, co-authored three books and numerous book chapters. She received her doctoral and master’s degrees from Stanford University and her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.