Pablo Debenedetti, Princeton’s Class of 1950 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science, received a lifetime Excellence in Teaching Award from the engineering school’s undergraduate and graduate student organizations. The student groups confer the lifetime award the sixth time a faculty member receives the Excellence in Teaching Award.

At the Feb. 21 award ceremony, speakers noted Debenedetti’s dedication to his students. One said that Debenedetti, who teaches the notoriously difficult subject of thermodynamics, shows a “fiery passion for teaching and discovery which burns bright and is visible to those around him.”

In a brief acceptance speech, Debenedetti, who also is vice dean of the engineering school, said his teaching career seemed like a version of a thermodynamic impossibility — the perpetual motion machine.

“It is all gain and no pain,” he said. “So I need to ponder that.”

The other recipients of this year’s awards were:

Andrew Houck, associate professor of electrical engineering, for ELE 302 System Design and Analysis (commonly known as Car Lab);

Mikko Haataja, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, for MAE 223 Modern Solid Mechanics;

Yannis Kevrekidis, the Pomeroy and Betty Perry Smith Professor in Engineering, for CBE 502 Mathematical Methods of Engineering Analysis II;

Howard Stone, the Donald R. Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, for MAE 305 Mathematics in Engineering;

Christopher Vicente Chen, teaching assistant, for CBE 341 Mass Momentum and Energy Transport;

Patrick Rebeschini, teaching assistant, for ORF 309 Probability and Stochastic Systems;

Edward Segal, teaching assistant, for CEE 205 Mechanics of Solids;

Shrenik Shah, teaching assistant, for MAT 201 Multivariable Calculus;

Ben Wu, teaching assistant, for ELE 203 Electronic Circuit Analysis.