Researcher of the Year

Hala Nassar
School of Architecture
College of Architecture, Art and Construction

Dr. Nassar’s scholarship concentrates primarily on cultural and historical landscape, influence of global stimuli on local and regional landscape transformation, globalization, and internationalization and multiculturism in Landscape Architecture higher education. Dr. Nassar’s most recent NSF research lies at the intersection of the use of drones and design of public space in collaboration with robotics, AI and mechanical engineering.

Jordan Frith
Department of English
College of Arts and Humanities

Dr. Frith’s research focuses on the often-ignored role infrastructures play in shaping our world. He has published multiple books about infrastructure, and his pending NSF grant proposal focuses on exploring massive scientific cyberinfrastructures through field work at Argonne National Laboratory to document the launch of the world’s fastest supercomputer.

Xiuping Jiang
Department of Food, Nutrition, and Packaging Sciences
College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences

Dr. Jiang has published more than 120 research articles, presented more than 200 technical presentations, and secured more than $10 million in competitive grants related to food safety. Her research focuses on understanding how foodborne pathogens (bacteria and viruses) persist in food, on surfaces and in environment, as well as developing strategies to control these pathogens.

Lesley Ross
Department of Psychology
College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences

Dr. Ross focuses on dementia prevention and maintaining the brain health, everyday functioning, and wellbeing of adults through behavioral interventions. Ross has led or contributed to over $90 million in research. She has held leadership positions in national organizations and currently serves on the SC Committee to Study Services, Programs and Facilities for the Aging.

Ryan Mullins
Department of Marketing
Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business

Dr. Mullins’s research focuses on salesperson effectiveness. What motivates salespeople? Why do they quit? How do peers influence their performance? How should they be paid? In answering these questions, his goal is to improve the effectiveness and reputation of salespeople and sales organizations, a major global employment sector.

Hans Klar
Department of Educational and Organizational Leadership Development
College of Education

Dr. Klar is a professor of educational leadership and the chair of the Department of Educational and Organizational Leadership Development in the College of Education. His research focuses on using improvement science to foster leadership development in rural and high-needs schools to increase teacher retention and student learning.

Mashrur "Ronnie" Chowdhury
Glenn Department of Civil Engineering
College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences

Dr. Chowdhury serves as a professor in the Glenn Department of Civil Engineering and is the founding Director of the USDOT-sponsored National Center for Transportation Cybersecurity and Resiliency. His work spans fundamental and applied research in sensing, communications, computing, and cybersecurity, all aimed at establishing a trustworthy IoT environment for smart cities and regions.

Barbara Campbell
Department of Biological Sciences
College of Science

Dr. Campbell is a microbial ecologist who combines fieldwork with bioinformatics-based approaches to characterize microbiomes in several ecosystems, from marine biofilms to important agricultural plants. This multifaceted approach allows estimations of microbial functions, activity, and growth in situ to characterize changes after disturbance and microbial contributions to ecosystem services.

Dhaval Gajjar
Nieri Department of Construction, Development and Planning
College of Architecture, Art and Construction

Dr. Gajjar’s current research agenda focuses on three interconnected subjects in the construction industry and the built environment: 1) built environment sustainability and resiliency, 2) construction workforce development, and 3) construction close-out process optimization. The outcomes of Dr. Gajjar's research work have seen direct application and contribution to the built environment industry.

Joshua Catalano
Department of History
College of Arts and Humanities

Dr. Catalano is a digital and public historian who employs archival, computational, and archaeological research methodologies to examine the role of language and symbolism in the process of settler colonialism. He is a principal investigator on several grants from the National Park Service.

Elizabeth Cieniewicz
Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences
College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences

Dr. Cieniewicz’s research focuses on advancing plant virus ecology to develop sustainable management programs. She works in specialty crop systems such as peach and blackberry, but also wild reservoir hosts in native habitats bordering crops. She conducts translational research to understand how viruses move and evolve at the landscape scale.

Irene Pericot-Valverde
Department of Psychology
College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences

Dr. Pericot-Valverde is developing a cohesive and highly productive research portfolio aimed at understanding and addressing addiction and sexual behaviors. More specifically, her research focuses on opioid use, smoking among those with opioid use disorder, and risky sexual behaviors in college students, utilizing contemporary methods in clinical research, psychopharmacology, and experimental psychology.

Emily Howell
Department of Education and Human Development
College of Education

Dr. Howell’s research explores technology integration and adolescent/disciplinary literacy, often using design-based research. Currently, she is addressing needed instructional capacity for multilingual learners through two large Department of Education grant projects. She has published in leading literacy journals, such as Reading Research Quarterly and Journal of Literacy Research.

Jessica M. Larsen
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences

Dr. Larsen works to enable therapeutic and diagnostic tools for neurologic disorders including, but not limited to, childhood neurodegenerative conditions, Parkinson’s disease, brain cancer, and nerve injuries. Polymer-based nanotechnology provides a platform to deliver drugs into these impossible to reach tissues.

Thao T. Tran
Department of Chemistry
College of Science

Dr. Tran’s research goal is to develop a deep understanding of how chemistry determines targeted physical properties in innovative materials and why such chemistry–property relationships exist—directly relevant to important advances in energy and information technologies that could transform our world by accelerating environmental conservation, national security, and healthcare.

He Li
Department of Management
Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business

Dr. Li’s research focuses on the business, industry, and societal impacts of digital technologies and digital business models. His work advances the understanding of entrepreneurial opportunities in digital platform ecosystems, business efforts to address cybersecurity threats, and the impacts of advanced transportation information systems on industry resilience and vehicle safety.