Northeast South Dakota News

The annual South Dakota State University Celebration of Faculty Excellence recognized 25 faculty members, researchers and scientists Tuesday. The event honors faculty members in the university's colleges for outstanding research, teaching and service.

Before the evening banquet, five faculty scholars delivered Sewrey lectures to raise awareness and show scholarship in the categories of research and scholarship, creative and fine arts, teaching and learning, and service.



John McMaine delivered the David Fee Memorial Lecture, "Building the Roadmap to Water Resilience." He is an assistant professor and Griffith Chair in Agriculture and Water Resource Management in the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, director of Mesonet at SDSU, director of South Dakota Water Resources Institute and an SDSU Extension water management engineer. Fee taught philosophy and religion at SDSU for more than 20 years. Annual presenters of the named lecture are selected based on their topics and contributions to Fee’s example of crossdisciplinary learning, inquiry and collegiality.

Excellence in Teaching and Research awards were awarded to these faculty members:

• Dr. Sherwood and Elizabeth Berg Research Young Faculty Award to Alison Coulter, an assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resource Management

• Dr. Harold and Barbara Bailey Award for Excellence in Academic Department Leadership to Jason McEntee, director of the School of English and Interdisciplinary Studies

• F.O. Butler Award for Excellence in Research to Xiaoyang Zhang, professor and co-director for the Geospatial Sciences Center of Excellence

• F.O. Butler Award for Excellence in Research to Sunish Sehgal, an associate professor in the Department of Agronomy, Horticulture and Plant Science

• F.O. Butler Award for Excellence in Service to Andrea Carlile, lecturer and director of forensics in the School of Communication and Journalism

• F.O. Butler Award for Excellence in Teaching to Rebecca Kuehl, professor and associate director in the School of Communication and Journalism

• Edward Patrick Hogan Awards for Teaching Excellence to George Tsakirdis, senior lecturer in the School of American and Global Studies, and Bryan Romsa, associate professor in the School of Health and Consumer Sciences

• Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring Award to Darci Fink, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

• Excellence in Online Teaching Award to Jennifer Anderson, associate professor in the School of Communication and Journalism

• Excellence in Outreach and Engagement Award to Andrea Bjornestad, associate professor and SDSU Extension specialist in the School of Education, Counseling and Human Development

• Timothy J. Nichols Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Student Advising to Lisa Hager, associate professor in the School of American and Global Studies The 2023 Outstanding Researchers, Scholars, Performers and Artists from the university’s colleges include:

• College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences’ Outstanding Researcher to Eric Nelson, distinguished professor and assistant head of the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences

• College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences’ Outstanding Researcher to Andrea Leschewski, assistant professor in the Ness School of Management and Economics

• College of Education and Human Sciences’ Outstanding Researcher to Axton Betz-Hamilton, assistant professor in the School of Health and Consumer Sciences

• Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering’s Outstanding Researcher to Stephen Gent, professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and director of the North Central Regional Sun Grant Center

• College of Natural Sciences’ Outstanding Researcher to Darci Fink, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

• College of Nursing’s Outstanding Researcher to Mary Isaacson, associate professor in the Department of Graduate Nursing

• College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions’ Outstanding Scholar to Brittney Meyer, professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice  Delivering the Sewrey lectures were (area, name, title, department):

• Creative and Fine Arts: Kevin Kessler, an assistant professor in the School of Performing Arts

• Research and Scholarship: Molly Krueger Enz, a professor in the School of American and Global Studies, and Rebecca Kuehl, a professor in the School of Communication and Journalism

• Teaching and Learning: Greg Heiberger, an assistant professor in the College of Natural Sciences

• Service: Lisa Madsen, a lecturer in the School of English and Interdisciplinary Studies

Original source can be found here.