University Subject Matter Experts List

College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences

 

Antoine Alston

Professor, Agribusiness, Applied Economics and Agriscience Education
Ph.D., Agricultural Education, Iowa State UniversityResearch interests include Instructional technology, Distance learning, Agriculture education, African American agricultural history (Contact)

 

Misty Blue-Terry

4-H STEM Specialist, Cooperative Extension
Ph.D., Human Factors Engineering, N.C. A&T State University
Research interests include 4-H, STEM education, Robotics (Contact)

 

Rosalind Dale

Associate Dean and Administrator, Cooperative Extension
Ed.D., Adult and Continuing Education, National-Louis University
Research interests include Extension outreach, Nutrition and wellness (Contact)

 

Godfrey Gayle

Professor, Natural Resources and Environmental Design
Ph.D., Biological and Agricultural Engineering, North Carolina State University
Research interests include Water security, Climate change, Soil science (Contact)

 

Valerie Giddings

Interim Associate Dean for Research
Ph.D., Apparel and Textiles, General, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Research interests include Obesity prevention, Health and wellness, Functional and aesthetic apparel design (Contact)

 

Shirley Hymon-Parker

Professor
Ph.D., Administration and Supervision, University of Maryland
Research interests include Undergraduate research, Childhood obesity, Rural entrepreneurship (Contact)

 

Salam Ibrahim

Professor, Family and Consumer Sciences
Research interests include Food science, Nutrition, Probiotics (Contact)

 

Omon Isikhuemhen

Professor, Family and Consumer Sciences
Ph.D., Microbiology, Academie ved Czeska Republika
Research interests include Mushroom biology, Fungi research (Contact)

 

Valerie J. McMillan

Professor, Family and Consumer Sciences
Ph.D., Human Development and Family Studies, Iowa State University
Research interests include Child and family Nutrition, Parent education (Contact)

 

Radiah Minor

Professor, Animal Science
Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences- Microbiology & Immunology, Meharry Medical College
Research interests include Mammalian immunology, Molecular biology (Contact)

 

Chyi-lyi "Kathleen" Liang

Endowed Professor, Co-director of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS)
Ph.D., Agricultural Economics, Purdue University
Research interests include Multifunctional agriculture, Entrepreneurship, Rural development, Food systems, Food networks (Contact) 

Shengmin Sang

Professor, Family and Consumer Sciences
Ph.D., Medicinal Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Material Medica, Chinese Academy of Science
Research interests include Food science, Bioactive compounds and health (Contact)

 

Abolghasem Shahbazi

Professor, Natural Resources and Environmental Design
Ph.D., Agricultural Engineering, University of Pennsylvania
Research interests include bioenergy, Biofuels, Renewable energy, Bioprocessing and bioproduct development (Contact)

 

Claudette Smith

Associate Administrator for Cooperative Extension
Ph.D., Family Economics, The Ohio State University
Research interests include family & financial literacy, 4-H, Health and nutrition (Contact)

 

Godfrey Uzochukwu

Professor, Natural Resources and Environmental Design; Director, Interdisciplinary
Waste Management Institute
Ph.D., Soil Genesis and Mineralogy, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Research interests include environmental processes and Waste management (Contact)

 

Lijun Wang

Professor, Natural Resources and Environmental Design
Ph.D., Agricultural and Food Engineering, National University of Ireland, Dublin
Research interests include bioenergy & wastes-to-energy technologies, Biorefinery research, Energy efficiency (Contact)

 

Leonard L. Williams

Professor, Family and Consumer Sciences; Director, Center for Excellence in Post-Harvest Technologies
Ph.D., Food Science and Technology, Alabama A&M University
Research interests: Food science and health, Food safety (Contact)

 

Osei-Agyemang Yeboah

Professor, Agribusiness, Applied Economics and Agriscience Education; Director, International Trade Center
Ph.D., Agricultural Economics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Research interests include International trade, Natural and environmental resources economics, Agricultural business, Marketing (Contact)

College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

 

Jose A. Bravo De Rueda

Professor, Liberal Studies
Ph.D., Spanish
Research interests include Cultural Issues (music from a Sociopolitical point of view),
Latin America, Latin America and U.S. relations. (Contact)

 

Fuabeh P. Fonge

Professor, History
Ph.D., History of Africa, Howard University
Research Interest: General history of Africa from antiquity to the present, Africana studies, and the history of World Civilizations. My area of specialization is Africa South of the Sahara, with emphasis on the colonial and postcolonial eras, modernization development and human resource administration. (Contact) 

 

Gregory Horton

Associate Professor, Interim Chair, Visual and Performing Arts
MFA, Theatre/Costume Design, Michigan State University
Research interests include costume history and costume reproduction. (Contact)

 

Hope Jackson

Professor
Ph.D., Cultural Studies/Critical Theory and Analysis, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Research interests include African American Film and Culture/Hip Hop Discourse/Narrative Discourse/Storytelling and the Oral Tradition/Critical Pedagogy/African American Rhetorical Traditions (Contact) 

 

Gregory Meyerson

Professor
Ph.D., Critical Theory, Northwestern University
Research interests include critical theory: post structuralism, critical race theory, Marxism (Contact)

 

Valerie Nieman

Professor
MFA, Creative Writing – Fiction, Queens University of Charlotte
Research interests include creative writing (fiction and poetry); Appalachian writing; eco-justice (Contact)

 

Arwin Smallwood

Professor, History
Ph.D., Early American History, The Ohio State University
Research interests include researching and writing on the history of Native Americans, Africans and Europeans in eastern North Carolina and the New World. My fields include: Colonial American, African-American, Native American, Southern and North Carolina History (Contact)

 

Frederick H. Smith

Associate Professor, Liberal Studies
Ph.D.
Research interests include Caribbean studies (Contact)

 

Bryon Turman

Professor, English
M.A.
Research interests include the study of Hip Hop music and culture as a literary phenomenon that chronicles the lives and experiences of the Black and Latino community. (Contact)

 

College of Business and Economics

 

Mark Burkey

Professor, Health Economics
Ph.D., Economic Theory, Duke University
Research interests:  Economic Theory, GIS, spatial econometrics, and Operations Research methods to analyze the accessibility of facilities (such as hospitals), and how accessibility can be most efficiently improved. (Contact)

 

Kathryn Cort

Associate Professor, Marketing
Ph.D., Marketing, Kent State
Research interests: International marketing-related topics (Contact)

 

Sherrie Drye

Associate Professor, Business Education
Ph.D., Management Information Systems, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Research interests:  Healthcare information technology, social implications of technology, academic integrity, and predatory publishing in academia. (Contact)

 

Joseph Huscroft

Associate Professor, Supply Chain Management
Ph.D., Management, Auburn University
Research interests include reverse logistics processes, customer returns, environmental logistics issues, impact on infrastructure to supply chain management, and most general supply chain management/logistics issues. (Contact)

 

Kevin L. James

Associate Professor, Accounting
Ph.D., Accounting, The University of Tennessee
Research interests include financial accounting and diversity issues using behavioral research methodology (Contact)

 

Stephanie Kelly

Associate Professor, Business Education
Ph.D., Communication and Information, University of Tennessee
Research interests include interpersonal influence and measurement – how messages affect receiver motivation, information seeking, and learning (Contact)

 

Lyubov Kurkalova

Professor, Economics
Ph.D., Economics, Agricultural, Iowa State University
Research interests include analyzing the impacts of policy and economic factors on forest and agricultural land use, production, and the environment, and in developing the tools - spatially explicit models and econometric techniques - for such analyses. (Contact)

 

Kimberly McNeil

Associate professor, Marketing
Ph.D., Business Administration, Florida State University
Research interests include Demographic and Psychographic Influences, Marketing Communications Influences, Marketing Education, Marketing Issues in Travel, Leisure, and Services (Contact)

 

Collins E. Okafor

Assistant professor, Finance

Ph.D., International Business Administration, Texas A&M International University
Research interests include corporate finance areas of dividend policy, capital structure & cost of capital, executive compensation, earnings management, corporate governance, and CSR, as well as, financial statement analysis and security valuation (Contact)

 

Lisa Owens-Jackson

Interim dean and associate professor, Accounting and Finance
Ph.D., Accounting, Oklahoma State University
Research interests include accounting education and the use of financial and managerial accounting information in governance and decision making (Contact)

 

Scott Simkins

Assistant professor, Economics
Ph.D., Economics, University of Iowa
Research interests include economic education, diffusion of pedagogical innovation, change in higher education (Contact)

 

George Stone

Associate Professor, Marketing
Ph.D., Marketing, University of Mississippi
Research interests include consumer environmental concerns, marketing of corporate ecological image, and marketing and consumer behavior. (Contact)

 

Lisa Gueldenzoph Snyder

Professor, Business Education
Ph.D., Higher Education/Higher Education Administration, Bowling Green State University
Research interests include business communication (audience analysis, persuasion, presentation slide design), online learning, distance education, and virtual teaching (Contact)

 

Alexander Yap

Associate professor, Business Education
Ph.D., Management of Information Systems, Copenhagen Business School
Research interests include business analytics, big data analytics, visual analytics and dashboard design, financial analytics and knowledge systems, data mining analytics, information security, and blockchain technology. (Contact)

College of Education

 

Kimberly D. Erwin

Associate Professor, Educator Preparation
Ph.D., Curriculum and Instruction, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Research interests include African American males at the elementary level and the preparation of teacher leaders who aspire to transform education by utilizing research-based pedagogical practices that meet the needs of diverse students (Contact)

 

Cathy Kea

Professor, Educator Preparation
Ph.D., Education, University of Kansas
Research interests include preparing teachers to design and deliver culturally responsive instruction in urban classrooms and ways to infuse diversity throughout course syllabi and teacher preparation programs. (Contact)

 

Comfort Okpala

Professor, Leadership Studies
Ed.D, Educational Leadership, Fayetteville State University
Research interest include higher education funding and leadership issues and their relationship to faculty and students' retention and graduation. (Contact)

Nichole L. Smith

Administration and Instructional Services
Ed.D, Curriculum and Instruction, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Research interests include improving the reading abilities of K-12 students via leisure reading, family literacy support, summer reading, supplemental reading programs, and teacher professional development (Contact)

 

Alisa S. Taliaferro

Associate Professor, Counseling
Ed.D, Educational Administration, Clark Atlanta University
Research interests include social capital and cultural responsive leadership (Contact)

 

Tammy Webb

Associate Professor, Counseling
Ph.D., Student Personnel, Mississippi State University
Areas of Research and counseling specialty include counseling women and girls, substance abuse counseling- prevention and intervention, counseling individuals with mental and physical disabilities and multicultural counseling  (Contact)

College of Engineering

Mohd Anwar

Associate Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D., Computer Science
Research interests include Cybersecurity, Human-centered Computing, and Health Informatics (Contact)

 

 

Lauren Davis

Professor, Industrial and System Engineering
Ph.D., Industrial Engineering, North Carolina State University
Research interests include Humanitarian Logistics, Supply Chain Optimization, Emergency preparedness/ response (Contact)

 

Salil Desai

Professor, Industrial and Systems Engineering
Ph.D., Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh
Hybrid Nano/Micro and Bio Manufacturing, Regenerative Tissue Engineering & Drug Delivery, Multiscale and Multiphysics modeling, Combinatorial Additive Manufacturing. (Contact)

 

Abdollah Homaifar

Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ph.D., Eletrical and Electronics Engineering, The University of Alabama
Machine Learning, Approximate Reasoning, Soft Computing, Evolutionary Computations, Stochastic Control and Estimation, Modelling and Control of Systems of Systems , Robotics (Contact)

 

Manoj K. Jha

Associate professor, Civil, Architectural, Agricultural and Environmental Engineering
Ph.D., Civil Engineering, Iowa State University
Research interests include Water Cycle, Field and Watershed Modeling, Water Resources Engineering and Management, Climate Change and Land Use Change Impacts on Hydrology and Water Resources, Evaluation of BMPs for Sediment and Nutrients, Extreme Hydrological Events (Floods and Droughts), Uncertainties in Modeling and Assessment (Contact)

 

John Kizito

Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University
Research interests include Fluid and Thermal Engineering, Bio-physicochemical hydrodynamics, Aerospace, Computational Fluid Dynamics (Contact)

Stephanie Luster-Teasley

Interim dean, Civil, Architectural, Agricultural and Environmental Engineering
Ph.D., Environmental/Environmental Health Engineering, Michigan State University
Research interests include Water and wastewater treatment, remediation of soil and groundwater, water sustainability, and engineering education. (Contact)

 

Matthew B. McCullough

Assistant Professor, Chemical, Biological and Bioengineering
Ph.D. Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering, University of Iowa
Research interests include Musculoskeletal biomechanics, computational modeling, kinematic analysis, health disparities. (Contact)

 

Jagannathan Sankar

Distinguished Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Ph.D., Metalluryand Materials Engineering, Lehigh University
Research Interests include Broad-based materials innovation and translation (Contact)

 

Greg Monty

Director of the Center for Energy Research and Technology (Contact)

 

Tonya Smith-Jackson

Professor, Industrial and Systems Engineering
Ph.D., psychology, North Carolina State University
Research interests include Cyber-human Analytics in Internet of Things Contexts, Cognitive and Behavioral Scripts, Systems Safety, Risk Analysis, Cognitive Ergonomics, Mixed Methods Design and Evaluation, Statistics, Human Factors Analytics, Systems Engineering, Mobile communications, healthcare systems design and evaluation. usability engineering, consumer products (Contact)

 

Huiming A. Yu

Professor, Computer Science
Ph.D., Computer Science
Research interests include Cloud computing, information assurance, computer security and visualization (Contact)

 

Xiaohong (Dorothy) Yuan

Professor, Computer Science; Interim Chair
Ph.D., Florida Atlantic University
Research interest includes cyber security (Contact)

College of Health, Humanities and Social Sciences

 

Arnold Barnes

Associate professor, Social Work and Sociology
Ph.D., Social Work, Washington University (Contact)


 

Marc Cook 

Assistant professor, HPLS Exercise Immunologist
Ph.D., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Research: Effects of Exercise and the Gut Microbiome on Cardiovascular Disease Risk (Hypertension) in Sedentary and Athletes. Biomarkers of Vascular Disease in African Americans. (Contact)

Alvin L. Keyes

Associate Professor, Psychology
Ph.D., Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Research interests include Electrophysiology of visual-spatial attention; cognitions, perceptions, behavior, and health; identity development as a function of an comprehensive worldview (Contact)

 

Anna Lee

Associate Professor, Psychology
Ph.D., Social Psychology, Howard University
Research interests include the impact of structural inequities (i.e., racism, sexism, discrimination and stigma) on health and education outcomes among people of color (Contact)

 

College of Science and Technology

Abdellah Ahmidouch

Professor, Physics
Ph.D., Physics, University of Geneva
Research interests include Experimental Intermediate And Low Energy Nuclear Physics;  Nuclear Nonproliferation And Nuclear Special Materials; Nuclear Science; Physics and STEM Education; Development of Nuclear And Particle Physics Instrumentation; Medical Physics: Medical Imaging, Application and Exploration of Nuclear Physics Potential in Medicine; Nuclear Energy (Contact)

 

Solomon Bililign

Professor, Physics
Ph.D., Physics, Atomic Molecular and optical Physics/Chemical Physics, University of Iowa
Research interests include Atmospheric Chemistry/Physics – Elucidating the chemical and optical properties of particles produced during combustion (Biomass burning) as a function of aging in the atmosphere; The Multiphase Heterogeneous Chemistry of SO2 under wintertime conditions; Measurement of the Henry's law coefficient and first order loss rate of Isocyanic Acid (HNCO) and other pyrogenic species in the liquid phase; Laser Induced Breakdown spectroscopy for detection of metal contaminants in soil, water and food; Chemical Physics- Laser induced chemical reactions, Chemical dynamics and abinitio quantum calculations (Contact)

 

Ashot Gasparian

Professor, Physics
Ph.D., Physics, Yerevan Physics Institute
Research interests include experimental nuclear and particle physics using electromagnetic probes in the few GeV energy range (Contact)

Margaret Kanipes-Spinks

Honors College dean; professor, Chemistry
Ph.D., Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University
Research interests include Food-borne pathogen detection and STEM Education (Contact)

 

Robert Newman

Assistant Professor, Biology
Ph.D., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Johns Hopkins University
Research interests include understanding the organization and regulation of cellular signaling pathways, with a particular emphasis on phosphorylation-dependent signaling pathways mediated by protein kinases and phosphatases (Contact)

 

Elimelda Ongeri

Assistant Professor, Biology
Ph.D., Animal Physiology, Perdue
Research interests include understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying acute and chronic kidney disease, in vitro cell culture systems, animal models, and human patients (Contact)

 

Jing Zhang

Associate Professor, Physics
Ph.D., Atmosphere Science, Peking University
Research interests include Regional climate and weather studies by the means of numerical modeling and data analysis. Recent and ongoing research include: mesoscale wind field study over complex topography in the Arctic; data assimilation and its application for regional reanalysis; regional climate downscaling for environmental impact studies; the role of stratosphere and troposphere interaction in the Arctic storm development; vegetation-land-air interactions and climate impacts of greening north; surface mass balance modeling for the Antarctic Peninsula. (Contact)

Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering

 

Shyam Aravamudhan

Associate Professor, JSNN
Ph.D. Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of South Florida
Research interests include Nanobioelectronics, Regenerative Engineering, 2D Materials, MEMS Sensors and System, Material Toxicity
(Contact)

Ajit Kelkar

Professor, JSNN
Ph.D., Engineering Merchanics, Old Dominion University
Research interests include Atomistic Modeling , Nano Engineered Materials, Eletrospinning, Molecular Dynamic Simulations, Nanotechnology, Multifunctional Materials, Crashworthiness, Low Cost Composite Manufacturing (VARTM Processing), Mechanical Characterization of Materials including Metals, Polymeric Composites (Tape and Textile), Ceramics and Ceramic Composites, Computer Aided Design and Modeling, Finite Element and Finite Difference Modeling, Numerical Analysis, Fatigue and Impact Modeling and Testing of Polymeric Composites, Ceramic Composites, Textile Composites, Micromechanics Modeling and Testing, Single Fiber Modeling and Testing (Contact)