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