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*Excerpts from Chamberlin’s nominations:*

As an international student, I came to Iowa State in 2010. I didn’t know what I wanted to do at that point, until the morning that Dennis showed up in my JLMC 110 class and showed a presentation about the life of being a photojournalist with a slideshow. I knew immediately that will be my life goal. After class I went up to Dennis and introduced myself. I was so inspired by Dennis’s presentation. He helped me to realize my dream.

In the fall semester 2011, Dennis encouraged us to cover the presidential election and Occupy Wall Street movement in Iowa. I covered the news with different techniques that I learned in his classes: still photography, video and audio. I put up all the materials I got from covering the Occupy Wall Street movement into one multimedia piece, which won me Multimedia Competition III -National Fifth Place and a $1,000 scholarship reward. That was my first award and I had been rejected so many times before, and Dennis told me never give up on hope.

While I’ve been a student at the Greenlee School, no other faculty member has played as integral a role in my life as Dennis Chamberlin. I first met Dennis through the Urbino Project study abroad program, which I did over the summer between my junior and sophomore year. When I left the program after one month abroad, Dennis was officially my new faculty adviser and friend, which is something I believe too few people have the opportunity to say about their professors. Since studying abroad, I have worked with Dennis both in and out of the classroom and he has made quite an impression on my life. When signing up for classes I always tried to get into his. Even though they ended up being among my most difficult courses to pass, they always challenged me and ultimately made me a better journalist by forcing me to try new techniques, get out of my comfort zone and get to the heart of a story.