Education
Faculty and Staff Briefs June 2026
Florida State University’s distinguished faculty are central to the mission of the university. Faculty excellence in scholarship, research, and creative activity is critical to the quality of student learning and makes a difference in the lives of others.
Throughout the year, honors and recognitions are awarded to individual faculty and staff members across campus. Faculty and Staff Briefs are produced monthly to recognize accomplishments and provide a space where honors, awards, bylines, presentations, grants, service and any other notable items can be showcased.
HONORS AND AWARDS
Amber DeJohn, Ph.D. (Department of Geography) was awarded the NIH/NCATS-funded K12 Multidisciplinary Program Career Development Award for her project titled “Disentangling Mobility, Cognitive Function, and Digital Behaviors to Understand Social Isolation and Dementia Risk.” Her project aims to identify patterns of physical and digital social engagement and examine their associations with baseline cognitive function to determine whether digital social engagement mitigates social isolation or reinforces withdrawal from in-person social environments.
Val Wongsomboon, Ph.D. (Anne’s College) was awarded a College-sponsored CTSA Career Development Award for her project titled “Development and Feasibility Testing of a Brief AI Literacy Intervention to Improve Help-Seeking and Mental Health Outcomes in Adolescents.” Her project aims to develop and pilot test an intervention on AI digital literacy to teach adolescents about AI limitations for emotional support and help them build help-seeking skills. The goal of this intervention is to build help-seeking behaviors among vulnerable adolescents and prevent the escalation of depressive symptoms.
Patrick Merle, Ph.D. (School of Communication) has been selected to take part in the 2026 Scripps Howard Leadership Academy hosted by Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications.
Nate Newton, Ph.D. (Wertheim College of Business), and two co-authors have been selected to receive the American Accounting Association’s 2026 Notable Contribution to Accounting Literature Award for their paper, “How do team workloads and team staffing affect the audit? Archival evidence from U.S. audits,” published in the July 2021 issue of Accounting, Organizations and Society. They will receive the award and a $2,500 prize at the 2026 AAA Global Connect in August in Las Vegas.
Cassandra Cole, Ph.D., Evan Eastman, Ph.D., and Kyeonghee Kim, Ph.D. (Wertheim College of Business), won the Les B. Strickler Innovation in Instruction Award for their work on “AI-Powered Simulation Games for Risk Management and Insurance Education.” They will receive the award during the national meeting of the American Risk and Insurance Association in August.
Deb Osborn, Ph.D. (FSU Career Center & Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) has been selected as the recipient of the Eminent Career Award bestowed by the National Career Development Association.
Paul Cohen, (College of Motion Picture Arts) produced Groundswell, a documentary directed by two FSU alumni, Joshua Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell. The film was awarded the Golden Globe Prize for Documentary at Festival De Cannes.
Elizabeth Ray, Ph.D., Felicia Jordan Jackson, Ph.D. (School of Communication), and Ph.D. candidate Trayana Kaleycheva received the Top Paper Award from the Public Relations division of the International Communication Association (ICA) for their paper, “When Smiles and Frowns Meet Sugar and Fat: Affective Cues, Risk Perceptions, and Nutrition Decisions.”
Jie Chen, Ph.D., RN (College of Nursing), received the Editor of Distinction Award for “Author Service Award 2026” from Springer Nature for serving on the editorial board of BMC Nursing, an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on all aspects of evidence-based nursing care.
Rachel Duke, Ph.D., Research and Engagement Program Director (Libraries), received the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Foundation Annual Meeting Award to support her attendance at ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2026 in New Orleans, LA.
Javier Rosado, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) received the 2026 Alumni Award from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he did a doctoral internship in Clinical and Community Psychology.
GRANTS
Zhe He, Ph.D. (School of Information), and Michael Killian, Ph.D. (College of Social Work) received a CTS Pilot Award for their project, “A Reusable AI-Assisted Psychosocial Risk Synthesis Engine for Pediatric Transplant Evaluation,” from the UF+FSU Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Hub.
Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski, Ed.D. (Learning Systems Institute) and Sana Tibi, Ph.D. (Department of Communication Science and Disorders) will serve as principal investigators on a project with IREX on the Early Grade Education Activity (ASAS) in Jordan. LSI will join the project to advance Jordanian-led teacher education initiatives.
Liz Dunne, M.S., and Michael Pritchard, M.A. (Libraries) received a $9,975 grant from the Florida Department of State Division of Library and Information Services for their project “FSU Libraries / Leon County Schools Cross-Sector Professional Learning Community (PLC)” supporting high school librarians and Leon County Dual Enrollment students’ research needs at FSU.
Gary Ostrander, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) and Eric H. Holmes, Ph.D., (Research and Graduate Programs) were awarded a $365,437.52 grant from the Florida Department of Health Innovation Fund for “Enacting Niclosamide Activity for Cancer Treatment (ENACT).”
BYLINES
Marissa Hershon, (John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art) authored the paper, “The Dwight James Baum Business Records: Rediscovering the Creatives Behind the Ringlings’ Vision for Ca’ d’Zan” which was accepted for the international academic conference, “On papers. Archives for Project, History and Prospects” at the ArCoD Department of Architecture Construction Design of the Bari Polytechnic University in Bari, Italy, in collaboration with A Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa and the Alma Mater Studiorum at University of Bologna HPA Lab, June 2026, and will be included in the peer-reviewed collective volume of the series Quaderni di ArchitecrA – Architettura attraverso gli Archivi dell’editore Quasar in Rome, Italy.
Timothy Baghurst, Ph.D. (Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) co-authored “Why Context Matters: An Exploration of How Sporting Characteristics Shape Coaching Practice,” published in the Journal of Teaching in Physical Education.
Timothy Baghurst, Ph.D. (Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) co-authored “Analysis of coach and athletic director turnover in the Florida school system,” published in the International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching.
Joseph Watso, Ph.D. (Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) and Ph.D. candidate Christin Domeier co-authored “Water intake mediates cross-sectional associations between urinary kidney injury biomarkers and race in emerging adults,” published in the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.
Jay Kesten, LL.M. and LL.B., (College of Law), has a forthcoming article, “Presidential Immunity: A Lesson from Corporate Law”, with the Georgia State Law Review.
Kristy Anderson, Ph.D. (College of Social Work) co-authored the article, “Caregiver employment changes and care coordination in families with children and autism,” published in the journal Research in Autism.
Sonnie Mayewski, MSW, and Michael Killian, Ph.D. (College of Social Work) co-authored the article, “Integrating shiny web applications into pediatric transplant research: Development, implementation, and case application,” published in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.
Michael Killian, Ph.D. and Sonnie Mayewski, MSW (College of Social Work) co-authored the article, “Behavioral health and adherence factors driving emergency and inpatient care among pediatric transplant recipients,” published in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.
Lisa Schelbe, Ph.D. (College of Social Work) co-authored the article, “Corporal punishment in the U.S. Public Schools: A review of state bans,” published in the journal, Children & Schools.
JaNiene Peoples, Ph.D. (College of Social Work) co-authored the article, “Ecological momentary assessment of racial discrimination and same-day and next day alcohol use among Black college students,” published in the journal, Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
Michaé Cain, Ph.D., Lauren Stanley, Ph.D., and Dina Wilke, Ph.D. (College of Social Work and Florida Institute for Child Welfare) co-authored the article, “An investigation of factors impacting job-stress-related presenteeism among child welfare workers,” published in the Children and Youth Services Review.
Kara Guinan, M.S., and Lauren Stanley, Ph.D. (College of Social Work and Florida Institute for Child Welfare) co-authored the literature brief “Understanding Disordered Eating in System-Involved Youths: A Trauma-Informed Overview for Child Welfare Professionals,” which will be published through the Florida Institute for Child Welfare.
Burcu Izci, Ph.D. (College of Social Work and Florida Institute for Child Welfare) co-authored the article “Guiding parents on young children’s digital technology use: Insights from preservice and in-service teachers”, in the Journal of Research in Childhood Education.
Patrick Merle, Ph.D. (School of Communication), and graduate student Mitch Krueger co-authored “Are all uses of AI created equal? An experimental review of AI disclosure types on credibility” in Journalism.
Sun Young Park, Ph.D., Jaejin Lee, Ph.D., and Braidyn Lazenby, Ph.D. (School of Communication) co-authored the research article, “Gut health goes viral: analyzing influencer advertising for dietary supplements on TikTok,” in the International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing.
Zhe He, Ph.D., Mia Lustria, Ph.D. (School of Information), Obianuju Aliche, Ph.D. (College of Medicine), Kyunghye Kim, Ph.D. (School of Information), and doctoral student Lovinta Atrinawati co-authored the systematic review, “Patient Experiences With Online Laboratory Test Presentations From Access to Activation: Systematic Review”, in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
Kathleen P. Wilson, Ph.D., APRN, FNP-BC, BC-ADM, FAANP, FNAP, DipACLM (College of Nursing), co-authored “Lifestyle interventions for major depressive disorder (MDD): An expert consensus statement from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.” Published in the Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.
Brittany Lane, MPH, Ph.D., Casey D. Xavier Hall, MPH, Ph.D., Artur Queiroz, Ph.D., BSN, MS (College of Nursing), Rasheda Haughbrook, MS, Ph.D. (Center of Population Sciences for Health Empowerment), Umedjon “Umed” Ibragimov, Ph.D., Liying Wang, Ph.D., Eugenia Flores Millender, Ph.D., RN, PMH-APRN, FAAN, FAANP, Frank “Frankie” Y. Wong, Ph.D. and Amanda Gabster, Ph.D., MSc (College of Nursing), co-authored “Healthcare Acceptability and Delayed Care Among Older People Living with HIV in the All of Us Program.”
Brendan Weaver, Ph.D. (Department of Art History) authored a chapter within The Oxford Handbook of South American Archaeology.
Brenda Wawire, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) co-authored “Understanding the Relations between the Component Skills of Reading Comprehension among English Language Learners from Kenya,” which was published in Reading & Writing quarterly.
Michelle Bumatay, Ph.D. (Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics) edited a special issue of the journal Francosphères (Liverpool UP), vol. 15, Issue 1, titled “Francophone Afrotopias.” She also wrote the introduction, edited an interview with the Francophone Senegalese author Felwine Sarr, and contributed an article titled “Francophone comics by African digital natives: Forming (as) inclusive Afrotopias.”
Michael Neal, Ph.D. (Department of English) had his article, “Following the North Star: Movement Toward Universal Writing Assessment,” published in the Journal of Writing Assessment, a peer-reviewed publication dedicated to topics in writing assessment.
Jacquelyn H. Clements, Ph.D., Digital Projects Librarian (Libraries), authored a review of Welo Hou in the June 2026 issue of ARLIS/NA Multimedia & Technology Reviews.
Delaney W. La Rosa, EdD, MSN Ed, RN (College of Nursing), co-authored the textbook “Nursing Education in the AI Era: Practical Guidance for Educators to Provide Equitable Care”. The textbook has been adopted for use at Harvard University and will be featured in the window display at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Karen Geletko, MPH, Jon Mills, Ph.D., Jeffrey Harman, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) and three medical students published “Impact of Legislation on Adolescent E-Cigarette Use” in Public Health Reports.
Yang Hou, Ph.D., Dan Liu, Ph.D., and Xiaoli Zong, Ph.D., (College of Medicine) were among the global team of authors of “Age-varying associations between parent-reported executive function and internalizing/externalizing problems in children with neurofibromatosis type 1: an integrative analysis of data from nine institutions,” published in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.
Karen MacDonell, Ph.D., and Sylvie Naar, Ph.D. (Center for Translational Behavioral Science/College of Medicine) were two five authors who published “Blood Spot Biosampling Technology for HIV Viral Load Collection Among Youth with HIV” in AIDS and Behavior.
PRESENTATIONS
Dillon Pruett, Ph.D. (School of Communication Science & Disorders) presented a poster, “The gene VRK2 is implicated in genome-wide analyses of stuttering, language, and rhythm traits,” at the Molecular Psychiatry Association Conference in Lihue, Hawaii.
JR Harding, Ed.D. (Wertheim College of Business) presented in May with FSU students Julian Dirani, Ashley Evans and Kristen Mancinelli at FSU Panama City’s 2nd Annual Northwest Florida Disability Conference. Their topic was the Evolution of Higher Education and PWDs.
James Hunt, Ph.D. (Office of Institutional Research) presented “Navigating Your Professional Development Through IR Organizations” at the 2026 Association for Institutional Research in Washington, D.C.
Katherine Gipalo, MPA and Samantha Nix, Ph.D. (Office of Institutional Research) co-presented “How Do I Say No? Discussing Strategies for Saying No to Stakeholders” at the 2026 Association for Institutional Research in Washington, D.C.
Heather Epstein-Diaz, MLIS (Office of Institutional Research) co-presented “Data Governance as a Service: Building Trust, Access, and Usability” at the 2026 Association for Institutional Research in Washington, D.C.
Heather Epstein-Diaz, MLIS and Eclipse Ramsey, MSI (Office of Institutional Research) co-presented “AI Readiness Starts with Context: Semantic Layers for Higher Education” at the 2026 Association for Institutional Research in Washington, D.C.
Lee Howell, MBA (Information Technology Services) presented “Metrics Strategies: Aligning Data, Tactics, and Purpose for IR Success” and “Beyond the Numbers: Faculty Achievement in Fine Arts” at the 2026 Association for Institutional Research in Washington, D.C.
Landon Weeks, (Division of University Advancement) presented “Maximizing our Joint Slay: Strategies to Effectively Leverage Campus Partnerships at the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education’s (CASE) Recent Alumni and Student Engagement conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
Frederick Abbott, LL.M. and J.D., (College of Law), presented at the “Order and Disorder in International Trade: The Past and the Future,” meeting hosted by the European Free Trade Association, the World Trade Institute, and the University of Bern, in Bern, Switzerland.
Michael Morley, J.D., (College of Law), presented at the Florida Bar Government Lawyer Section’s first-ever Legacy & Leadership Symposium at The Florida Bar Annex Building in Tallahassee. He presented a “Survey of Recent Cases in Elections Law,” which reviewed court decisions affecting state and federal 2026 elections laws.
Ose Ndebbio, M.S. (Florida Institute for Child Welfare, College of Social Work), and Jessica Greil-Burkhart, MSW (College of Social Work), presented “Scaling Course Improvement Without Losing Instructional Judgment” at the Teaching and Learning with AI conference at the Gaylord Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.
Machelle Madsen Thompson, Ph.D. (College of Social Work), Malaika Samples, Ph.D. and Tenille Taylor (Florida Institute for Child Welfare) and (Stoops Center for Communities, Families, and Children) presented a half-day training, “Advancing Child Maltreatment Interventions Through Case-Based Training and Virtual Reality,” at the Association of Professionals Solving the Abuse of Children 2026 conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Mona Bozorgi, Ph.D. (Department of Art) chaired a session, Materiality and Response-ability and presented her research titled Affective Matter: On the Exchange Between Image, Substance, and Bodies. She was also part of a juried group exhibition and served as a portfolio reviewer at the Society for Photographic Education Annual Conference in Atlanta.
Yelena McLane, Ph.D. (School of Design) presented a paper titled Generative Affordances in Permanent Supportive Housing: Applying Ecological Theory to Dignified Design at the annual Environmental Design Research Association conference in Amherst, MA.
Grace Aneiza Ali, MFA (Department of Art) was a featured speaker at the Donald Locke Symposium: Edge of Spirit in London.
Erin Morpeth-Provost (Counseling & Psychological Services) presented a general session “EMDR in a University Counseling Center: Client Outcomes and Practical Use in Response to a Campus Crisis” at the American College Health Association annual conference.
Mari Kay Avant (University Health) co-presented two general sessions at the American College Health Association annual conference: “Administration Hot Topics: Marketing Student Health Centers” and “Designing For Impact: Creative Strategies to Market College Healthcare to Gen Z Students.”
Nicole Lilly (Career Center) presented “From Stuck to Sprouting: Tools for Resilient Career Thinking” at the Graduate Career Consortium.
Amy Magnuson, Ph.D., R.D. and Kelly Dykes, BSN, RN, CHPE, CPHIMS (University Health Services) co-presented “The Business Backbone of Student Health” at the 2026 American College Health Association annual conference.
Carrie Meyers and Jim Reynolds (Learning Systems Institute/FSU InSPIRE) presented at the 4th annual Teaching and Learning with AI conference at UCF.
Laura Greene, Ph.D. (Mag Lab), Anna Romanova, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute), and Michael Shatruk, Ph.D. (Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry) presented as part of the U.S. Science and Education Forum at the Lviv Academic Bridge.
Rob Schoen, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) presented “The human-in-the-loop: Navigating the intersection of AI limitations and expert pedagogy in mathematical task design” at the annual conference of the Florida Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Rob Schoen, Ph.D. and Amanda Tazaz, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) presented “Impact of CGI on Teachers and Students in Florida” and “Using M-CLIPS to Detect Impact of CGI on Teaching: Results from a Randomized Control Trial” at the 2026 CGI Conference in Arizona.
Lakesia Dupree, Ph.D., Odalis Tavares, Ph.D., Amanda Tazaz, Ph.D., and Shanann Young (Learning Systems Institute) presented “Empowering Families to Support CGI Practices at Home” at the 2026 CGI Conference in Arizona.
Alda Balthrop-Lewis, Ph.D. (Department of Religion) presented, “Patience and Political Asceticism,” as part of the Patience in Adversity Summer Seminar hosted by the Templeton Religion Trust funded grant at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
Tarez Samra Graban, Ph.D. (Department of English) presented her papers, “Cultural Lines of Sight: Reconsidering Historical Memory in and of the UN World Conference on Women at Beijing,” and, “Unsettling Expectations about the Resilience of South Africa’s Black Sash,” at the 22nd Biennial Conference of the Rhetoric Society of America in Portland, Oregon.
David Newheiser, Ph.D. (Department of Religion) presented, “Mysticism and Political Theory,” at the British International Studies Association 2026 Conference in Brighton and the invited lecture, “Critical Political Theology” at King’s College London, in the United Kingdom. He also presented, “Miracles and Democratic Imagination: The Power of an Impossible Hope,” at the International Network in Philosophy of Religion in Paris, France, and, “Religion, Wonder, and the Limits of Reason: Reframing the Debate over Miracles,” at Panteion University in Athens, Greece.
Silvia Valisa, Ph.D. (Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics) co-organized the panel, “Italian Ecopoetry in Translation: An Ecology of Attention,” and presented her paper, “Moving Encounters: Italian Ecopoetry Translation Workshop at FSU,” at the Poetry’s Environments Conference organized by Poetry@Leeds, the poetry center of the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.
Alice Maxwell, M.A., Jessie Colegrove, M.A. and Evan Eisenstark (Division of Student Affairs Marketing and Communications) presented, “Before the Glow Up: Rebuilding Career Center Marketing for What Comes Next” at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education Annual Marketing and Branding Conference in Denver, Colorado.
Saanchi Shah, Ph.D., and Boris Kantor, Ph.D. (Institute for Pediatric Rare Diseases/ College of Medicine) presented at the A.J. Anderson Foundation & IPRD Rare Disease Conference in Palm Harbor, Florida. Shah spoke about presented “Sunshine Genetics Updates” while Kantor presented “Gene Therapy for Pediatric Rare Diseases: Current Status and Future Perspectives.”
Rebecca Carter, LCSW, and Karen Cramer, MSW (College of Medicine) spoke at the 2026 National Association of Social Workers-Florida Annual Conference in Orlando on “CBT for Nicotine Dependence: Better Behavioral Health and Recovery Outcomes in Social Work Practice.
Joseph Gabriel, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) and his two co-editors of “Dealing with Drugs: New Histories of Risk and Benefit” were guests on a University of Rochester Press podcast about their book, part of the Rochester Studies in Medical History book series.
Regan Bailey, Ph.D., and Patrick Stover, Ph.D. (Institute for Connecting Nutrition and Health/College of Medicine) presented at the 31st Marabou Symposium in Stockholm, Sweden, with the theme “Dynamics of Nutrient Needs to Compensate for Metabolic Decline in Aging.” Stover moderated panel discussions and Bailey presented “Bringing it all together: Nutrient needs throughout the life cycle.”
Heather Flynn, Ph.D., and Mike Drury, Psy.D., (College of Medicine) presented “Fundamentals of Psychological Treatments for Perinatal Behavioral Health” in a webinar for healthcare professionals.
EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES
Jamie Ho, MFA (Department of Art) had work featured in Fellowship 26 at Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, PA.
Katie Kehoe, MFA (Department of Art) has a series of 6 photographs exhibiting in “Unprecedented” at The Crown Gallery at Metro Art Studios in Bridgeport, CT, and is also in the group exhibition, “The Forest was Rebuilt with Scrap and Ply” at Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, AL.
Alena Mehic, MFA (Department of Art)’s work “Za Mamu” will be on view at “somewhere i have never travelled”, an exhibition at Behind VA Shadows in Cambridge, MA.
Jiha Moon, MFA (Department of Art) exhibited “Collection, Reframed: Jiha Moon” at Bechtler Museum of Modern Art in Charlotte, NC.
Meredith Lynn, MFA (Department of Art)’s work “Bad Outdoorsmen (Application Video)(Northeast Florida)” is on view at The Orlando Museum of Art for the 12th Annual Florida Prize in Contemporary Art exhibitions. Professor Meredith Lynn’s monograph is available at the Orlando Museum of Art store.
Lilian Garcia-Roig, (Department of Art) is included in several traveling group shows including, “Let Us Gather In A Flourishing Way” at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York, which will be followed by a national tour including presentations at the Des Moines Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the Phoenix Art Museum, and the Frye Art Museum, Seattle.
SERVICE
Kyeonghee Kim, Ph.D. (Wertheim College of Business), joined the Academic Advisory Council of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ Center for Insurance Policy and Research, for which she will provide input and guidance on the center’s mission to advance understanding of insurance issues among policymakers, regulators, industry leaders and academia.
Latika Young, MA, Ed.M. (Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement) chaired the panel “Expanding the Scope of CUR: A Panel Discussion about Statewide Efforts to Support Undergraduate Research” and served as host for a lunch discussion table on “Statewide Support for Undergraduate Research” at the ConnectUR conference hosted by the Council on Undergraduate Research in College Park, Maryland.
Kathleen P. Wilson, Ph.D., APRN, FNP-BC, BC-ADM, FAANP, FNAP, DipACLM (College of Nursing), has been appointed as Member at Large to the Fellows of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP) Executive Committee. The FAANP program is dedicated to the global advancement of nurse practitioners (NPs) and the high-quality health care NPs deliver.
Jessica Bahorski, Ph.D., APRN, PPCNP-BC, WHNP-BC (College of Nursing) and BSN undergraduate students Kelsie Nyman and Madison Roy attended the Gadsden County Healthy Start Coalition Baby Bash. They offered height and weight measurement for infants with growth chart tracking.
Leah Sherman, Ph.D., Visual & Performing Arts Librarian (Libraries), was elected Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect of the Arts Section of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) for the 2026–2029 term, reflecting her ongoing leadership in arts librarianship.
Laurel Harbin, Ph.D., AICP, LEED-AP (Office of the Provost) and Rabieh Razzouk, MBA (Learning Systems Institute) have each been appointed by FSU President Richard McCullough to serve two-year terms on the Florida State University Schools, Inc. Board of Directors.
Alice Maxwell, M.A. (Division of Student Affairs Marketing and Communications) served as faculty for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education Annual Marketing and Branding Conference in Denver, Colorado. In addition to helping plan the conference, she moderated the student communications focused panel “What Students Wish You Knew” and served on the panel “AI in Marketing and Branding: What’s Working, What’s Not, and What’s Next” as a speaker.
Cheryl Porter, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) was appointed to the inaugural Research, Engagement, Growth and Scholarship Committee of the Association of American Medical Colleges. AAMC restructured its groups and replaced the Group on Student Affairs with the Learner Access, Support, Opportunity and Retention Group, of which this new committee is a part.
Susan Epstein, MSLS (College of Medicine) was named to the Information, Discovery & Interchange Topic Committee of the National Information Standards Organization, a library access organization.
NOTABLE
Patrick Merle, Ph.D. (School of Communication) has been accepted to present at the 27th annual congress of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association in September in Malaga, Spain.
Richard Morris, (School of Communication Science and Disorders) retired after serving Florida State University for nearly four decades (since 1988).
Giovanni Lopez, (Wertheim College of Business) served as a panelist at the 2026 Technology in Business Schools Round Table annual meeting, hosted by the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business, and offered insights about moving into a new building, including planning, design, construction, technology, implementation and more.
Maria Paula McIntyre Nwenyi (Center for Leadership & Service) is one of 15 FSU faculty and staff members who earned the Institutional Research Data Literacy and Analytics Certificate in Spring 2026.
The Ukraine Task Force, led by Vilma Fuentes, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute), hosted Dmytro Dyadin, Ph.D. and Oleksandr Hrytsyna, Ph.D. as part of the Bridge USA Ukraine Program for Resilience and Reconstruction, which connects Ukrainian and U.S. scholars to foster research, develop education, and rebuild resilience through impactful international partnerships.
Rick Burnette (Sr. Vice Provost & Chief Strategy Officer) participated in “The Higher Education AI Reality Check” IREX webinar discussing FSU’s approach to AI and the broader questions surrounding its use in higher education.
Lakesia Dupree, Ph.D., Odalis Tavares, Ed.D., and Amanda Tazaz, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) worked with educators in Hillsborough County on the Successful Start: Cognitively Guided Instruction project, providing training and support to math teachers serving students in foundational grades.
Please send items for Faculty and Staff Briefs to tfordyce@fsu.edu. We publish monthly.
