Previous Awardees

Amal Amer
Professor of microbial infection and immunity in the College of Medicine
Amer's projects tackle important questions in innate immunity, inflammasome functions, pathogenesis, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease. Her lab studies the mechanism of bacterial and viral pathogenesis in the lung including Legionella pneumophila, Burkholderia cenocepacia, MRSA, and SARS-CoV-2.

Sara M. Butler
Professor and King George III Chair in British History in the College of Arts and Sciences
Butler’s research publications lie in the history of the law, including four books on social issues in Medieval England. Her current research focuses on inquests of hate and spite, that is, malicious accusations of homicide in thirteenth-century England.

Smita Mathur
Professor of Astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences
Mathur uses powerful X-ray telescopes to study the flows of matter around supermassive black holes and the tenuous hot gas in the outer reaches of galaxies andin the vast spaces between them.

Robyn Warhol
College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of English
As a feminist narratologist, Warhol studies the interrelations between gender and narrative forms. Warhol’s research has ranged widely across topics that combine her chief interests: Victorian literature, narrative theory, and women’s, gender and sexuality studies. She is especially known for her pioneering work on the relation of gender to narrative forms in the nineteenth-century novel.

Shang-Tian Yang
professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering (CBE) in the College of Engineering
Yang is focused on interdisciplinary research involving synthetic biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, microbiology, food science and bioprocess engineering with industrial and biomedical applications.

Srinivasan Parthasarathy
Professor of computer science and engineering in the College of Engineering
Parthasarathy is a world-renowned expert and leader in data analytics, specializing in high-performance data mining, graph mining, network analysis, database management and anomaly detection.

Joshua J. Joseph
Associate Professor and Endowed Professor for Research in Internal Medicine in the College of Medicine
Joseph’s research focuses on advancing prevention and treatment of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease through a health equity lens with four pillars: examining the role of stress hormones in cardiometabolic disease; health system to community innovation; community-based participatory research; and quality improvement.

Jiangjiang "Chris" Zhu
Assistant Professor in the College of Education andHuman Ecology’s Human Sciences department
Specializing in metabolomics studies for cancer and nutritional research that aims to improve human health, his current research includes studying host-microbiotametabolic interactions and the critical roles of nutritional components in modulating such interactions, as well as investigating the impact of therapeutic modulation of gutmicrobes to metabolic diseases and cancer patients.

Brian J. Skinner
Assistant professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences
Skinner performs theoretical research into the nature and dynamics of quantum entanglement and into the quantum mechanical behavior of materials. Professor Skinner also holds a patent on a novel form of thermoelectric energy conversion, which transforms waste heat into useful electric power.

Daniel Gallego-Perez
Associate professor of biomedical engineering in the College of Engineering and professor in the department of surgery in the College of Medicine
Gallego-Perez’s research focuses on the development of novel biomedical micro- and nanoscale technologies for fundamental and translational applications. Major areas of emphasis in his lab include regenerative medicine, cell and tissue reprogramming, drug and gene delivery and cancer research.

Adélékè Adéẹ̀ẹ̀kọ́ọ́
Distinguished Professor of Humanities in the Department ofEnglish and interim chair of the African American and African Studies (AAAS)department
Adéẹ̀ẹ̀kọ́ọ́ 's primary teaching and research interests, about all of which he has published widely and taught at all levels, are Anglophone African literatures, African American literature and Anglophone postcolonial literatures. He maintains fervent teaching and research interests in deconstruction, twentieth-century literary theory and Yorùbá literature and orature.

Jeffrey Chalmers
Professor of chemical engineering
Professor Chalmers is researching intrinsic magnetization cell separation and immunomagnetic cell separation, cancer detection and bioengineering. He has been the leading international researcher in mammalian bioprocess engineering for more than 30 years and his contributions have changed the way mammalian cell culture engineering is undertaken around the world in both industry and academia. In the coming decades, cell separations will become increasingly important for the next wave of biologics, both for examining diseased cells as well as treating disease with cell therapies.

Korie Little Edwards
Professor of sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences
Edwards is a leading scholar of race and religion in the United States. Drawing upon qualitative and quantitative methodologies, she addresses this topic looking at two contexts: racially diverse religious organizations and religious organizations that are predominately black. She has directed or co-directed several funded research projects totaling more than $1.8 million in grants, including the Religious Leadership andDiversity Project (RLDP) – the most in-depth, comprehensive study conducted on religious leaders of multiracial congregations.

Matthew Sullivan
Professor of microbiology in the College of Arts and Sciences with a joint appointment in the Department of Civil and Geodetic Engineering
The ‘microbiome’ is increasingly recognized to drive Earth’s ecosystems, including in humans, but it does so under constraints imposed by viruses. Sullivan pioneered viral ecogenomics as a means to study viruses in complex communities via quantitative viral metagenomic sample-to-sequence pipelines, new approaches to link viruses and hosts, and developing iVirus, a community-available analytical platform. In the oceans, Sullivan has vastly expanded our understanding of the global virosphere, established automatable scalable taxonomic approaches, and elucidated how ‘wild’ viruses evolve and even metabolically reprogram the most abundant photosystems on the planet. Outside the oceans, Sullivan has adapted these toolkits for use in extreme environments, soils and humans with each new environment leading to myriad discoveries that place viruses at the core of these microbial ecosystems.

Mohit Randeria
Professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences
Randeria is a condensed matter theorist whose research focuses on correlated and topological states of quantum matter, especially superconductivity and magnetism.He has been associated with the multidisciplinary Center for Emergent Materials, the NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Ohio State, since its inception 15 years ago, where his research focusses on novel magnetic materials and their interfaces. Recently, he led a major DARPA project, with a team of investigators from physics and materials science and engineering, focusing on quantum materials that harbor topological spin excitations that can serve as new platforms for magnetic memories.

Xiaodong Zhang
Robert M. Critchfield Professor in Engineering in the College of Engineering’s Computer Science and Engineering Department
Zhang's research interests cover a wide spectrum in the areas of high-performance and distributed systems, with data management in computer and scalable systems being a common thread among his projects. He has transferred his academic research into advanced technology to impact general-purpose production systems in both hardware and software. Several technical innovations and research results from his team have been widely adopted in commercial processors, major operating systems and databases with direct contributions to the advancement of the computer and distributed systems.

Patricia Zettler
Associate professor of Law in the College of Law
Zettler is a nationally-recognized expert on food and drug law and policy. Her scholarship has appeared in leading legal, interdisciplinary and medical journals covering various topics including non-trial preapproval access, citizen science, stem cell interventions, opioids, cannabis products and tobacco and nicotine products.Since 2020, Zettler has worked on issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic response, authoring nearly a dozen publications related to COVID-19 countermeasures and serving as an expert on the topic in national media outlets. Zettler’s teaching areas include torts, legislation and regulation, health law, the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration (FDA), and drug policy.

Christin Burd
Associate professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics, College of Arts and Sciences, and the Department of Cancer Biology and Genetics, College of Medicine
Burd’s research focuses on mechanisms to prevent melanoma and improve outcomes in older adults with cancer using molecular biology, biochemistry, cell culture, mouse models and human tissue samples. Recent work from her lab examines how aging of the immune system is impacted by different cancer therapies and may influence drug toxicity and patient outcomes. Her contributions to the field include the discovery of the first human circular RNA associated with disease, developing the p16LUC mouse model to track aging and spontaneous tumor formation in live animals, and establishing the mutant-specific role of oncogenic NRAS in melanoma formation. Burd has developed several state-of-the-art genetically engineered models that allow scientists to track the formation and progression of spontaneous cancers and test melanoma prevention strategies.

Christo Sevov
Assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences Chemistry and Biochemistry department
Sevov’s research aims to develop strategies at the interface of homogeneous catalysis and electrochemistry for the sustainable utilization of electrical energy that is generated from renewable sources. Treating electrical energy as a reagent, he aims to demonstrate that toxic, explosive, or expensive reagents, which drive traditional synthetic organic processes, can be replaced with inexpensive and benign additives, thereby enabling organic synthesis to be performed in a safe, sustainable and scalable manner. His research also seeks to design large scale energy storage systems that can assist with the integration of intermittent electrical loads from renewable sources into the electrical grid.

Sharyn Baker
Gertrude Parker Heer Chair in Cancer Research, Professor and Chair of the Division of Pharmaceutics and Pharmacology in the College of Pharmacy, and Associate Director of Shared Resources in the Comprehensive Cancer Center
Dr. Baker is a pharmacologist and leader in translational cancer therapeutics where she has contributed to the development of safe and effective single-agent and combination drug therapies for adults and children with various forms of cancer. A major portion of her career has focused on development of effective therapies for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in pediatric and adult populations. She was among the first to identify a treatment strategy against tyrosine kinase inhibitors resistance due to somatic mutations, which is a key driver of leukemic cell growth in AML. Baker’s research has led to the initiation of several clinical trials in children and adults, which has contributed to the FDA approval of new drugs and drug combinations with improved safety and anti-cancer activity.

Bhavik Bakshi
Richard M. Morrow Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Bakshi’s research is motivated by the need for engineering that not only enhances human well-being and is societally acceptable, but also respects ecological limits and prevents unintended harm. To meet this challenge, his work has resulted in systematic and scientifically rigorous methods for developing products and processes that contribute to sustainable development. Bakshi’s research integrates multiple disciplines including ecosystem ecology, environmental economics, energy policy, applied statistics and process systems engineering.

John Beacom
Henry L. Cox Professor of physics and astronomy, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP)
Beacom specializes in neutrinos, working at the nexus of nuclear physics, particle physics and astrophysics. Through theoretical calculations and experimental interpretation, he shows what can be learned from rare events about fundamental particles and the physics of supernovae, neutron stars and black holes. He is especially known for his scholarship on the history of star formation, the census of supernovae across cosmic time, and the associated diffuse supernova neutrino background.

Rita Pickler
FloAnn Sours Easton Endowed Professor of Child and Adolescent Health,
Pickler is a nurse scientist, pioneering research on the care of the preterm infant thatspans over 35 years. Her research focuses both on the preterm infant’s stay in theneonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and after discharge, especially during the initialtransition to home.

Bruce Weinberg
Eric Bryon Fix-Monda Professor in Economics
Weinberg has made important contributions to the understanding of how technological change and industrial shifts affect wage inequality, the determinants oflife outcomes and behaviors, and the emerging science of creativity and innovation. His pioneering work on innovation has involved developing influential data that sheds new light on how creativity varies over the life cycle, how an individual’s own creativity is affected by the presence of other important innovators, and the economic and societal value of innovation.

Daniel J. Wozniak
Professor and vice chair of Microbial Infection and Immunity at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and professor of Microbiology in the College of Arts & Sciences
Dr. Wozniak’s scholarship and research activities focus on infectious diseases, which impact more individuals worldwide than any other health issue. His studies focus on the problem of antibiotic resistance in bacterial pathogens, with primary focus on two multi-drug-resistant pathogens, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas. These pathogens cause illness and death in numerous people and play a major role in hospital-acquired infections. The two areas impacted by Wozniak’s decades of scholarly work are cystic fibrosis lung infections and chronic woundpathogenesis. Wozniak’s research is evidenced by more than 140 peer-reviewed manuscripts, five book chapters, three patents and over 300 abstracts/conference proceedings. Wozniak’s publications are found in journals that are among the most highly cited inmicrobiology and infectious disease.

Asimina Kiourti
Assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering
Kiourti’s interdisciplinary research lies at the intersection of electromagnetics, sensors, and medicine. Her work focuses on bio-electromagnetics, wearable and implantable antennas, sensors for body area applications, and flexible e-textiles.

Steve Oghumu
Assistant professor, College of Medicine
Oghumu is a scholar in cancer, immunology and epigenetic mechanisms of disease. His research has focused on two primary disease areas: oral carcinogenesis andsubstance use disorder. Using innovative mouse models, Oghumu is investigating the cellular, molecular and immunological mechanisms of oral carcinogenesis and advancing the development and application of compounds for oral cancerchemo prevention and treatment. He is also developing and applying uniquely novel mouse models to determine the contribution of X-chromosome inactivation to sex differences in susceptibility to neoplastic and neurologic disorders.

Elissa Washuta
Assistant professor of English, College of Arts and Sciences
Washuta is a literary nonfiction writer whose work incorporates creative expression, scholarly research and cultural criticism. Through her writing, Washuta explores experiences as a chronically ill person, survivor of violence and passionate researcheron subjects ranging from Native identity to non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Douglas Berman
Newton D. Baker-Baker and Hostetler Chair in Law, Moritz College of Law

Christopher Hirata
Professor, Department of Physics, College of Arts and Sciences, Division of Natural and Mathematical Sciences

Kendra McSweeney
Professor, Department of Geography, College of Arts and Sciences, Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Dorothy Noyes
Professor, Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences, Division of Division of Arts and Humanities

Abhay Satoskar
Professor, Department of Pathology, College of Medicine

Linda Weavers
Professor and John C. Geupel Endowed Chair, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering, College of Engineering