2021 Cohort

College of Business 

Hoda Vaziri, Department of Management - Dr. Vaziri's reserach interests include work-family, work-nonwork, multiple identities, employee well-being, quantitative methods.

Obi Ogbanufe, Department of Information Technology and Decision Sciences - Dr. Oganufe's research interests include information security, machine learning, text mining, risk management, and smart devices.

Peter Kipp, Department of Accounting - Dr. Kipp's  general research interests include AIS and auditing topics with a behavioral and decision-making focus.

College of Education

Carrie Allen, Department of Educational Psychology - Dr. Allen’s research aims to address institutional and systemic inequalities within STEM education by supporting the design and implementation of STEM learning reforms

Stephanie Silveira, Department of Kinesiology, Health Promotion and Recreation - Dr. Silveira’s research includes mixed-methods approaches in order to engage communities in her research creating tailored health promotion programs and examining outcomes such as psychosocial factors, body composition, fitness, diet, and physical activity.

College of Engineering

Melanie Ecker, Department of Biomedical Engineering - Dr. Ecker's research interests lie in polymer science and biomedical engineering. She wants to combine both fields to develop biomedical devices, such as conformal and biocompatible neural devices to study the electrophysiology of the enteric nervous system.

Yijie (Steven) Jiang, Department of Mechanical Engineering - Dr. Jiang's research background is in advanced manufacturing of nanocomposite materials.

Huaxio "Adam" Yang, Department of Biomedical Engineering - Dr. Yang's lab applies the cutting-edge multi-scale biomedical engineering tools and stem cell technologies to understand and treat human cardiovascular diseases, such as myocardial infarction, familial cardiomyopathies, congenital heart diseases, and cardiovascular toxicity.

College of Merchandising, Hospitality, and Tourism

Iva Jestratijevic, Department of Merchandising and Digital Retailing - Dr. Jestratijevic's current research is focused on sustainability and transformative behavior, specifically exploring the ways in which social and environmental initiatives perpetuate sustainable transformation, assuring corporate, collective and personal well-being.

Xi Leung, Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management - Dr. Leung’s research interests include information technology, social media, hospitality management, destination marketing, and hospitality education. Her work emphasizes applying new technology as tools for hotel/restaurant/destination marketing and management.

College of Information

Fred McMahan, Department of Learning Technology - Dr. McMahan’s research primarily focuses on Adaptive Virtual Environments. Specifically using neurogaming techniques to build XR environments that adapt to the user to provide an ever-changing experience.

Lingzi Hong, Department of Information Technology - Dr. Hong's research interests include data science and engineering, urban computing, crisis informatics, and data ethics.

College of Health and Public Service

Haley Zettler, Department of Criminal Justice - Dr. Zettler's primary research interests focus on correctional populations and programs designed to reduce recidivism. She is also interested in the role that mental health, substance use, and trauma have on recidivism.

Sharon Miller, Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology - Dr. Miller's primary goals of her current cortical auditory event-related potential (ERP) research program are to identify biomarkers of successful speech and language performance in persons with and without communication disorders and to develop auditory training protocols that maximize brain plasticity and improve auditory and speech-language outcomes.

College of Visual Arts and Design

Lauren Cross, Department of Interdisciplinary Art & Design Studies - Dr. Cross' research addresses interdisciplinary topics within the visual arts and design, including critical theory, social practice, art entrepreneurship/arts administration, curatorial studies/museum studies, multiculturalism, and women's and gender studies.

Pedram Baldari, Department of Studio Art - Baldari's artistic research is focused on the exploration of power dynamics, systems of legitimacy in an out of the arts, disorientation inherent in his Kurdish experience in regard to the state — past, in his native land and present, in the U.S. displacement, the concept of citizenship, war and immigration.

School of Journalism

Newly Paul, Department of Print and Digital Media - Dr. Paul's research interests include political communication, race and gender issues in the media, and women in politics.

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences

Martinque "Marti" Jones, Department of Psychology - Dr. Jones' research interests include racial and gender identity, identity development theory, intersectionality, multicultural & cross-cultural counseling, group psychotherapy, and mixed methods.

College of Music

Daphne Gerling, Department of Instrumental Studies - Dr. Gerling performs and teaches as a violist. Her interests and skills include music leadership development, program building, curriculum development in pedagogy and entrepreneurship, and graduate academic administration.

Jamey Kelley, Department of Music Education - Dr. Kelley's research interests include singing accuracy, participation in music education, aural skills development, music teacher education, social psychology of music education, and gender issues in music education

College of Science

Elizabeth Skellam, Department of Chemistry - Dr. Skellam's research interests include discovering and elucidating novel molecules, complex secondary metabolite pathways, and unusual biosynthetic enzymes from microorganisms using chemical and biological methods.

Yuan Li, Department of Physics - Dr. Li's research interests include galaxy clusters and massive galaxies; black hole accretion and feedback; the interstellar medium, the intra-cluster medium and the circum-galactic medium. She uses computer simulations to study various physical processes related to galaxy evolution and supermassive black holes.

Mauricio Antunes, Department of Biological Sciences - Dr. Antunes' research interests include the development of synthetic transcriptional and post-transcriptional control systems whose behavior can be modulated by specific inputs, engineering complex synthetic genetic circuits to improve plant production and biosynthesis, and re-wiring metabolic pathways in plants using gene regulatory controls.