Southern Miss Hattiesburg Campus Honors Faculty, Staff at Annual Awards Day Ceremony

Wed, 06/04/2025 - 09:28am | By: Dr. David Tisdale

Innovative research, effective instruction, inspiring leadership and community service by The University of Southern Mississippi’s faculty and staff were recognized and celebrated with awards and grants during the annual spring Faculty and Staff Awards Day Ceremony held May 2 at the Thad Cochran Center on the Hattiesburg campus.

Dr. Sarah Morgan, a Bennett Distinguished Professor at Southern Miss and associate director of its School of Polymer Science and Engineering, was presented with one of the event’s top honors, the Lifetime Achievement Research Award. This recognition honors a senior faculty member whose scholarly or creative career has made an extraordinary and significant impact on their discipline and demonstrates a high level of external recognition.

Morgan joined the Southern Miss faculty in 2003 after a distinguished 14-year career in the private sector with GE Plastics, where she held technical and managerial roles in engineering thermoplastics at GE locations around the world. Her research expertise includes bioinspired water-soluble polymers, morphology control, nanocomposites and high-performance polymers. In March, she was presented with the Mississippi Academy of Sciences’ Contribution to Science Award during its 89th annual meeting in Biloxi.

“It’s a great honor to receive the Lifetime Research Achievement Award,” said Morgan. “In my career at the university, I have had wonderful student research assistants, collaborators from across campus, and colleagues in polymer science and engineering, along with many opportunities for external research collaborations with other academic institutions, national labs, and industry partners. Southern Miss is an outstanding place to perform meaningful and impactful research.”

Other faculty and staff awardees included the following:

Southern Miss Nominee, National Endowment for the Humanities Award: Dr. Courtney Luckhardt

Provost Faculty Fellows: Dr. Leslie Oglesby, Dr. Carston Schmidtke, Dr. Masha Krsmanovic, Dr. Wei Wang, Dr. Stephanie McCoy Smith, and Dr. Timothy Tesh

Sabbaticals: Dr. Charkarra Anderson-Lewis, Dr. Fengwei Bai, Dr. Joshua Bernstein, Dr. Brad Dufrene, Dr. Sukriye Filiz, Dr. Westley Follet, Dr. Xiaodan Gu, Dr. Brian LaPierre, Dr. Stephanie Smith, and Dr. Donald Yee.

Aubrey Keith Lucas and Ella Ginn Lucas Endowment for Faculty Excellence Award: Dr. Kaitlin Baudier and Dr. Kayla Stan; Dr. Diana Bernstein, Dr. Alyson Brink, Dr. Song Guo, Dr. Alexander Kaeppler, Dr. Hsiaopei Lee, Dr. Chao Meng, Dr. Leslie Oglesby, Dr. Felix Twum, Dr. Leah Parker, Dr. Tanner Thorsen, Dr. Karl Wallace, Dr. Wei Wang, Dr. Kimberly Ward, and Dr. Hasan Saleh

Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Faculty Leadership Institute Fellows 2025: Dr. Rabab Abdelfattah, Dr. Katie Angus, Julia Bradley, MPA, Dr. Melissa Brooks, Dr. Maria Brown, Dr. Holly Foster, Dr. Robert Leaf, Dr. Marion Patti, Dr. Mariann Taylor, Dr. Anna Wan, and Dr. Reginald Wilson

Excellence in Teaching and Learning – Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Fellows:  Dr. Mary Jane Collins, Dr. Melissa Gutierrez, Dr. Laura Clark Hunt, Kalyn Lamey, MS, Marlene Naquin, MST, and Dr. Andrew Pace

Excellence in Teaching and Learning – Innovative Teaching Mini-Grants: Dr. Nicholas Ciraldo, Dr. Allison Downing, Dr. Moshen Foroughi-Sabzevar, Dr. Timothy Gutmann, Dr. Xuyang He, Jessica Matthews, MSM, Dr. Jeffrey Parr, and Dr. Candice Salyers

Excellence in Teaching and Learning – Summer Grants for Improvement of Instruction: Dr. Jennifer Brewington, Dr. Aaron Fath, Dr. Abubaker Haddud, Dr. Shohreh Hemmati, Dr. Katharine Howie, Dr. Hyunmin Kim, Dr. Melinda McLelland, Dr. Chad Miller, Dr. Nick Rahimi, Mya Rome, MS, Alexis Stoner, MBA, Dr. Mariann Taylor, Dr. Yuanyuan Zhang, and Dr. Zikai Zhou

Excellence in Online Teaching Award: Dr. K. Chimène Gecewicz

Outstanding Service-Learning Faculty Award: Linh Nguyen, MFA

Graduate Mentor of the Year: Dr. Donald Sacco

Honors College Mentor of the Year: Dr. Craig Carey, Dr. Wei Wang

Drapeau Center for Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year Award: Dr. Joanne Tran

Association for College and University Educators (ACUE) Faculty Development Institute – ACUE Promoting Engaged and Active Learning Microcredential:  Dr. Michael Aderibigbe, Samson Ayo, MS, Dr. Diana Bernstein, Micayla Cochran (graduate student), Dr. Jennifer Courts, Dr. Benjamin Damoah, Dr. Moshen Foroughi-Sabzevar, Dr. Rachael Fowler, Emily Goldsmith, MFA, Dr. Kaelli Gretter, Dr. Timothy Guttman, Dr. Andrew Huebert, Dr. Mirsalar Kamari, Rachel Lahasky, MSW, Hannah Madonna, MSW, Matt Martin, MA (graduate student), Dr. Katya Maslakowski, Jessica Matthews, MSM, Kathryn McKenzie, MFA, Dr. Tiffany Ridgeway, Karen Robles Lopez, MS, Shiza Shahid, MA, Dr. Ery Shin, Dr. Rhonda Smith, Dr. Paul Strait, Patricia Thomasio Quinelato Garcia, MA, Clarie Villareal (graduate student), Rubaiya Zannat, MA, and Clayton Ziemke (graduate student)

ACUE Distinguished Teaching Scholars: Dr. Jacob Chapman, Melody Davisson, MSW, Dr. Allison Downing, Dr. Ian Dunkle, Dr. Alison Fridley, Dr. Gretchen Goode, Dr. Andrew Gutkowski, Calvin Martin, M.S., Nathan Mullins, MFA, Jacob Namias, MA, Dr. Gero Nootz, Dr. Chelsea Pederson, Dr. Kaity Prieto Godoy, Dr. Sabrina Reid, Diana Smith, MSW, Dr. Stephanie McCoy Smith, Dr. Zach Taylor, Dr. Leonard Troughton, Dr. Sunny Wells, and Dr. Sharon Young

ACUE Advanced Certificate in Effective College Instruction: Dr. Stephanie McCoy Smith

Division of Student Affairs Awards

Joe Paul Rising Star Award: Cydney Landreau

Peter Durkee Superstar Award: Casey Taylor

Student Affairs Champion: Clarence Nemmers

Distinguished Friend of Student Affairs: Ryan Lee

University Research Innovation Awards

Academic Partnership Award: Dr. Kristy McRaney

Applied Research Award: Dr. Wei Wu

Basic Research Award: Dr. Yuanyuan Zhang

Graduate Student Research Award: Anthony Griffin, Shiza Shahid

Multidisciplinary Research Award: Dr. Wei Wang

Research Advocate Award: Tiffany Landry

University Excellence Awards – Staff Excellence Awards

Service Maintenance/Skilled Craft Technical Award: Mary Melissa Rawson, Barry Smith

Office Personnel: Eunice Tart

Professional: David Magola, Daniel Barton

Jessie H. Morrison Award: Ruby Drieling, Regina McCarty

University Excellence Awards - Faculty Excellence Awards

Nina Bell Suggs Endowed Professorship: Dr. Nicole Camlin, Dr. Ian Cicco

Junior Faculty Outstanding Research Award: Dr. Austin Graybeal

Junior Faculty Outstanding Teaching Award: Dr. Ian Cicco

Excellence in Teaching: Lin Nguyen, MFA

Excellence in Service: Dr. Fan Zhang