As excerpted from this October 11, 2017 IowaNow piece, Prof. Kearney was a recipient of the annual Board of Regents Award for Faculty Excellence:

"Joseph Kearney, Department of Computer Science. Kearney is a creative and successful researcher with a focus on developing virtual-environment technology to study important real-world problems, such as how child and adult pedestrians and cyclists cross roads with traffic. Graduate and undergraduate students working with him in the Hank Virtual Environments Laboratory enjoy a unique interdisciplinary training opportunity at the intersection of computer science and psychological science, with important implications for applied areas such as transportation safety. Kearney served as associate dean for research and development in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences from 2003 to 2016 and in that role became vital to the flood recovery project, first finding temporary facilities for units affected by the flood of June 2008 and eventually working with campus and external partners to rebuild and reinvent the arts campus. He has also been pivotal in the development of the Public Digital Arts, Digital Humanities, and Informatics clusters."