Dr. Ashley Helton was recognized as the 2017 recipient of the Kinsman Award for Excellence in Teaching by a junior faculty member in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources (CAHNR). She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment (NRE) with a joint appointment in the Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering (CESE). She routinely teaches Stream Ecology and Global Sustainable Natural Resources. In the past five years, Dr. Helton has authored or co-authored 16 peer-reviewed manuscripts in top journals in her field, including Ecology Letters, Ecological Modeling, and Biogeochemistry. She was an invited seminar speaker at several institutions, including the Cary Institute of Ecosystems Studies and Yale University. She and her students have presented at more than a dozen conferences since 2013. Dr. Helton’s appointment is 75% research and 25% teaching. Dr. Helton volunteered to teach Advanced Stream Ecology based on the needs of graduate-level and senior-level undergraduate students. Dr. Helton serves as a faculty instructor for the Natural Resources Conservation Academy (NRCA) field experience. She also serves as an associate advisor for graduate students in three UConn departments, including NRE, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), as well as for the Department of Environmental Life Sciences at Arizona State University. Dr. Helton is sincerely dedicated to the success of her students and the success of her research endeavors.