2025 Binswanger Prizes for Excellence in Teaching
Each year at Commencement, Wesleyan University recognizes three outstanding faculty members with the awarding of the Binswanger Prizes for Excellence in Teaching. The University is delighted to announce that this year’s recipients are David Constantine, associate professor of mathematics; Logan Dancey, associate professor of government; and Camilla Zamboni, associate professor of the practice in Italian.
Underscoring Wesleyan’s commitment to its scholar-teachers, these annual prizes are made possible by gifts from the family of the late Frank G. Binswanger Sr., Hon ’85. Recipients are chosen each spring by a committee composed of faculty and members of the Alumni Association Executive Committee based upon strong recommendations from alumni of the last 10 graduating classes, as well as current juniors, seniors, and graduate students.
These three remarkable teachers (bios below) join the distinguished group of previous Binswanger recipients.
2025 Binswanger Prizes for Excellence in Teaching Recipients
David Constantine, Associate Professor of Mathematics
Dave Constantine is an associate professor of mathematics. A versatile educator, he has taught a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses since joining Wesleyan in 2012. Particular teaching interests include courses in geometry, analysis, and probability, all of which have strong connections to his research. While at Wesleyan he developed an interest in teaching statistics, and he has worked to broaden and strengthen the department’s offerings, from the introductory-level Elementary Statistics through advanced major-level courses like Mathematical Statistics. He has served as a research mentor for a number of undergraduates and considers teaching and mentoring graduate students to be one of his favorite parts of working at Wesleyan.
Constantine received his PhD from the University of Michigan and was a postdoc at the University of Chicago before coming to Wesleyan. He researches problems at the boundary of geometry and dynamics, often focusing on geodesic flows and rigidity phenomena, and he collaborates with a number of other mathematicians. A recent project, funded by an American Institute of Mathematics grant, developed aspects of thermodynamic formalism for geodesic flows on CAT(0) spaces. This work allowed Constantine to collaborate with four other mathematicians, including a former Wesleyan PhD student. His work has been published in various mathematics journals.
Logan Dancey, Associate Professor of Government
Logan Dancey is an associate professor of government with research and teaching interests in the US Congress, campaigns and elections, and public opinion. His work has appeared in such journals as the American Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, and Political Behavior. He is also a co-author (with Kjersten Nelson and Eve Ringsmuth) of the book It’s Not Personal: Politics and Policy in Lower Court Confirmation Hearings. In his teaching at Wesleyan, especially in his Campaigns and Elections and Public Opinion and Polling Lab courses, he has engaged students in conducting and analyzing surveys of local voters and Wesleyan students. He has co-authored two peer-reviewed publications with former students and had students present their research at the Midwest, Southern, and New England Political Science Association Conferences.
Dancey holds a BA from the University of Puget Sound and a PhD from the University of Minnesota. He was a postdoctoral associate at the University of Pittsburgh prior to joining the Wesleyan faculty in 2012. He was awarded the University’s 2014–15 Carol A. Baker ’81 Memorial Prize recognizing accomplishments of junior faculty. His current research focuses on the federal judicial confirmation process, political polarization in the public and in Congress, and Americans’ perceptions of the state of US democracy.
Camilla Zamboni, Associate Professor of the Practice in Italian
Camilla Zamboni is an associate professor of the practice in Italian. Since 2014, she has coordinated the Italian language program in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. Her expertise in language acquisition, pedagogy, and open educational resources (OER) led to the creation of Assaggi, an OER curriculum used at Wesleyan in intermediate Italian courses. In the College of Education Studies, Zamboni is part of the core faculty and teaches the Educational Gaming Lab, a course where students discuss and create educational games.
Known for her innovative work in analog game-based learning and tabletop game design, Zamboni is often an invited speaker on these topics. Her recent scholarship includes the co-edited volume Roll for Learning (2024), a curated collection of educational micro tabletop role-playing games, and articles on the interplay of pedagogy and game design such as “Language, Play, Storytelling: Tabletop Role-Playing Games in the Italian L2 Classroom” (2025). Affiliated with the College of Design and Engineering Studies, Zamboni oversees the IDEAS interactive media and game design minor concentration. Also affiliated with the Fries Center for Global Studies, she developed the Italian Gaming Lab, a Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum course that focuses on using and designing games for language learning, and has served on the advising board for the global engagement minor and the Language Collective.
