University Scholars' Wall

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14220/137

Each year, the University of Montevallo confers the University Scholar Award. Recipients of this award demonstrate consistent and significant achievement in research and/or creative endeavors. The contributions of these individuals to their fields have been felt far beyond the borders of this campus, region, and nation. While the Scholar's Wall summarizes those achievements, its larger intent to celebrate the quality and vitality of the University's academic environment, which has emulated, nourished, and sustained the scholastic lives of each of these Scholars. Their accomplishments are the fruit of an environment enriched by the influence of colleagues, students, and community that comprise this rare place, the University of Montevallo.

This is virtual reproduction of the University Scholars' Wall, housed at Carmichael Library. It includes scholars from the date of origin (1978) to present.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 53
  • ItemOpen Access
    2024 University Scholar: Rosa María Stoops
    (2024) Stoops, Rosa María
    Dr. Rosa María Stoops joined the faculty in 2005 after completing a doctorate in romance languages at the University of Alabama. Her areas of specialization are French and Spanish language and literatures and literary theory. Her research focuses on the work of French and Spanish authors of the Medieval and Renaissance periods, especially on the works of Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes. Her articles and contributions are published in Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Cervantes: The Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America, Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, Biblioteca Miguel de Cervantes, and Anuario de Estudios Cervantinos, among others. In 2022, Stoops became the first Christiane Angele Jacobson Endowed Chair of Spanish at UM.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2023 University Scholar: Elizabeth "Betsy" Richardson
    (2023) Richardson, Elizabeth J.
    Elizabeth “Betsy” Richardson is an associate professor of psychology and clinical psychologist specializing in pain, traumatic injury, and physical rehabilitation. Her research centers on pain perception and behavioral intervention strategies amidst the escalating opioid epidemic. Richardson has published more than 30 written works in the medical psychology field and served as scientist reviewer for the U.S. Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program. She considers the most important aspects of her work to be teaching and research mentorship; in both, she aims to foster students’ confidence and skill in discovering solutions to unsolved problems affecting the lives of others.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2022 University Scholar: Ashley Wurzbacher
    (2022) Wurzbacher, Ashley
    Ashley Wurzbacher is the author of the novel How to Care for a Human Girl (Atria, 2023) and the short story collection Happy Like This (University of Iowa Press, 2019), which won the Iowa Short Fiction Award and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. In 2019 she was named a “5 Under 35” honoree by the National Book Foundation, a distinction which recognizes “young, debut fiction writers whose work promise[s] to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape.” She earned her MFA in creative writing from Eastern Washington University and her Ph.D. in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston. She joined the UM faculty in 2016.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2020 University Scholar: Tiffany Wang
    (2020) Wang, Tiffany
    Tiffany R. Wang joined the University of Montevallo faculty in 2012 after earning her B.S. and M.S. in Communication Studies from Texas Christian University and her Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Her research is focused on merging instructional and family communication research to understand how teacher-student relationships unfold as students negotiate the transition to college. Her research appears in peer-reviewed journals, including Communication Education, Communication Monographs, Communication Teacher, Journal of Applied Communication Research, Journal of Communication Pedagogy, The Journal of Continuing Higher Education, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, Journal of Family Communication, and Personal Relationships.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2019 University Scholar: Gregory Samuels
    (2019) Samuels, Gregory
    Before joining the UM faculty in the College of Education and Human Development in 2014, Gregory Samuels taught social studies in Baltimore and Tampa for over a decade. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of South Florida, where he deepened his passion for achieving social justice through education. His research is focused on critical pedagogy and inclusive practices for marginalized vices. He has authored articles and chapters on the Black Lives Matter movement, culturally responsive pedagogy and social justice education, and is the co-editor of a book titled, Democracy at a Crossroads: Reconceptualizing Socio-Political Issues in Schools and Society.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2018 University Scholar: Jason Newell
    (2018) Newell, Jason
    A native of Geneva County Alabama, Jason Newell received his B.A. in Psychology from Auburn University and an M.S.W. and Ph.D. in Social Work from The University of Alabama. He is a licensed independent clinical social worker specializing in the treatment of trauma-related, mood, and anxiety disorders across the life course. His research is focused on the preservation of the human service workforce through the practices of trauma-informed care and professional resilience. His 2017 textbook titled Cultivating Professional Resilience in Direct Practice is the culmination of over 10 years of research and publication.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2017 University Scholar: John Bawden
    (2017) Bawden, John
    John Bawden grew up in Southern California where he developed an interest in the Spanish language and Latino culture. As an undergraduate, he studied at University of Chile and subsequently received his doctorate from the University of California, Riverside. His first book, The Pinochet Generation: The Chilean Military in the Twentieth Century, was published in 2016. Professor Bawden writes about Latin American soldiers, US-Chile diplomatic relations, and the Cold War. His scholarship has appeared in The Journal of Latin American Studies, The Latin Americanist, and The Encyclopedia of U.S.–Latin American Relations.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2016 University Scholar: Heather Tinsley
    (2016) Tinsley, Heather N.
    Dr. Tinsley is a molecular and cell biologist who has devoted her career to understanding cellular communication. Specifically, she is interested in understanding the signals that human breast cells use to control milk production and release during lactation as well as how these signals change during the development of breast cancer. Dr. Tinsley enjoys sharing her love of cell biology with her students and hopes to ignite their curiosity in a way that they will carry with them well beyond their years at the University of Montevallo.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2015 University Scholar: Samantha Webb
    (2015) Webb, Samantha
    Samantha Webb joined the UM faculty in 1998 after completing a Ph.D. in English at Temple University. Her areas of specialization include British Romantic and Victorian literature, children’s and young adult literature, and folk and fairy tales. She has published articles on nineteenth-century literature in journals such as Essays in Romanticism, The Wordsworth Circle, Romanticism, The European Romantic Review, and in the edited collections, Pleasure and Romanticism, and Mary Shelley in her Times. In 2013, she was a founding co-editor of Digital Mitford: the Mary Russell Mitford Archive, and she became the archive’s Prose Fiction Editor in 2017.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2014 University Scholar: Jim Day
    (2014) Day, Jim
    Jim Day is a professor of history at the University of Montevallo. He holds a B.S. in engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, an M.A. in history from the University of Georgia, and a Ph.D. in history from Auburn University. His monograph—Diamonds in the Rough: A History of Alabama’s Cahaba Coal Field—combines technological and social history to examine the industrial development of central Alabama. The book won the Alabama Historical Association’s 2014 Clinton Jackson Coley Award for the best work on local history, and Dr. Day was named UM’s University Scholar for Academic Year 2014-2015.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2013 University Scholar: Lori F. Ardovino
    (2013) Ardovino, Lori F.
    Lori Ardovino is a composer, clarinetist, and saxophonist who performs in the Birmingham area with the Magnolia Trio, the Meallo Trio, and Lebaron Trio, and the Cahaba Saxophone Quartet. She is an advocate for new music and has premiered numerous works for clarinet and saxophone. Her works have been performed across the United States, Italy, Japan, and Canada. Her recent CD, "From a Crack in the Wall," Clarinet Music by Alabama Composers, was released January, 2013. She is an Artist/Clinician for the Conn-Selmer Corporation.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2012 University Scholar: Brett Noerager
    (2012) Noerager, Brett
    Dr. Brett Noerager has been curious about the natural world since he first dissected an earthworm and viewed an onion slice through a microscope. The revelation of worlds previously invisible to the naked eye stirred a sense of wonder and curiousity in him that today drives his interactions with students both inside the classroom and beyond. His research attempts to shed light on some of the more perplexing questions in the fields of neurobiology and immunology. From understanding the neurophysiological basis of addiction to the development of novel treatments for autoimmune diseases and inflammation, Dr. Noerager's research has culminated in publications in such scientific journals as The Journal of Neuroscience, Nature Medicine and Science.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2011 University Scholar: Mike Hardig
    (2011) Hardig, Terry M.
    Dr. Mike Hardig discovered his interest in botany growing up on a farm in central California. He has spent the last 22 years studying the diversity of plant species and the evolution of modern plant traits, publishing his findings in regional, national, and international journals. Much of Dr. Hardig's work has centered on the study of hybridization and hybrid species, which can serve as windows into the nature of species and the evolutionary processes that shape them.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2010 University Scholar: Joseph Landers
    (2010) Landers, Joseph
    Joseph Landers is a prolific composer whose works are performed across the U.S. and abroad. He describes his music as "based on a vocabulary in which both structure and expression are formed by design, guided by musical instincts, articulated by context, and concealed by stealth." The composer has been awarded fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the Tanglewood Music Center, and Alabama State Council on the Arts, as well as being named a finalist for the Alexander Zemlinsky Competition and Gaudemus Prize of Holland. In 2010, Landers was invited to the University of Cambridge to serve as a visiting scholar in composition.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2009 University Scholar: Kelly Wacker
    (2009) Wacker, Kelly
    Dr. Kelly Wacker is the editor and contributing author of an anthology, Baroque Tendencies in Contemporary Art. Specializing in the study of Land and Environmental art, her research examines the transformation of this modernist movement from its inception in the 1960s and 70s, typified by massive earthworks emphasizing the role of the individual, into the ecological and social-activist art of the current period. She is currently working on a number of projects concerning artists as naturalists, "eco-art," and the intersections of art and civic agriculture.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2008 University Scholar: Helen Moshkovich
    (2008) Moshkovich, Helen
    Dr. Helen Moshkovich's research interests focus on the support of decision making in complex business environments. She is a co-founder fo a new research methodology called Verbal Decision Analysis (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997) and published three books, 9 book chapters, and over 40 papers in American and International journals including such leading outlets as Decision Sciences, Journal of Multi Criteria Decision Analysis, Decision Support Systems, European Journal of Operational Research, and others. Dr. Moshkovich presented papers at numerous national and international conferences and received several awards including the Best Theoretical/Empirical Research Paper Award from the Decision Sciences Institute.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2007 University Scholar: Lee Rozelle
    (2007) Rozelle, Lee
    Dr. Rozelle's book, Ecosublime, established him as a "visionary leader" in the emerging field of ecocriticism. His articles have been published in scholarly journals such as Twentieth-Century Literature, ISLE, Critical Studies, and the University of Paris Press-Sorbonne's Frontiéres collection. He offered a plenary address at the ASLE-UK First Biennial Graduate Conference at the University of Glasgow, and has given scholarly presentations in places such as Warsaw, Calgary, Istanbul, Alaska, and Disney World.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2006 University Scholar: Houston Byrd
    (2006) Byrd, Houston
    Dr. Byrd received a B.S. in Chemistry in 1989 from Samford University, a Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1994 from the University of Florida, and was a Research Associate at Princeton University before joining the UM faculty in the Fall of 1995. Dr. Byrd has published 30 national peer-reviewed research articles in scientific journals such as Nature, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Organometallics, and Chemistry of Materials. He holds two patents and has presented his research at multiple National Chemistry meetings. Dr. Byrd also received the Outstanding Commitment to Teaching Award in 2002.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2005 University Scholar: Karen Graffeo
    (2005) Graffeo, Karen
    Karen Graffeo has photographed in various Roma (Gypsy) encampments and communities in Europe. Since 1999 her work has documented various groups of Roma that are living in temporary refugee camps in Italy and France. Her photo essay entitled "Let Us Now Praise the Roma" has toured Paris, France; Florence, Italy; Ithaca, New York; and Birmingham, Alabama. Her work has been published in Aperture Magazine, Black and White - a magazine published in Australia. She has been awarded two Alabama State Council artist fellowships, and the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans has awarded her two Rockefeller Foundation Grants.
  • ItemOpen Access
    2004 University Scholar: Jim Murphy
    (2004) Murphy, Jim
    Dr. Murphy is the author of The Memphis Sun (Kent State U. Press, 2000), the recipient of the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize. He has published poems, criticism, and reviews in journals nationwide, including The Southern Review, TriQuarterly, Southern Humanities Review, and Modern Fiction Studies. He has been a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers' Conference and is co-founder of the Montevallo Literary Festival.