College of Education
Dr. Karyn Allee, assistant professor of elementary education, was featured in the “2024 Research Roundup: 3 Must-Read Studies About Early Care and Education,” a research brief from The 74 in collaboration with Early Learning Nation. Her study was also highlighted in the EdSource News Brief and the ILA Literacy Teaching & Learning SmartBrief. Dr. Allee also co-authored a blog with Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek of Temple University titled “We All Need a Little More Recess,” which was published by The Brookings Institution. At the 2024 American Reading Forum Conference, Dr. Allee presented “Scaling Literacy: A Rock Climbing Metaphor for Reading Development and Instruction” alongside Brittany Adams, University of Alabama, and Nance Wilson, SUNY Cortland. Dr. Allee also co-presented “Sustaining Joyful and Meaningful Literacy Through Anti-Bias and Anti-Racist Themes in Children’s Literature” with Dr. Annemarie Kaczmarczyk, assistant professor of elementary education; Sherron Killingsworth Roberts, University of Central Florida; and Patricia Crawford, University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Allee and Dr. Kaczmarczyk, with Dr. LaTeshia Warren, clinical assistant professor of elementary education, had research accepted for presentation at the Georgia Educational Research Association Conference 2025. Their session, “Bridging Theory and Practice: Teacher Reflections on Implementing Writing Instruction in Elementary Classrooms,” was unable to take place due to winter weather conditions that prevented travel. Similarly, Dr. Kaczmarczyk and Dr. Allee, together with Ph.D. candidate Kimberly Sampson; Dr. Lucy Bush, professor of education; and Dr. Vicki Luther, professor of education, had their session “Books Under Fire: Educating Through Literature Amidst Gag Orders” accepted but were unable to attend. Ph.D. graduate Dr. Erica Britton successfully presented her dissertation research titled “Impact of Gender and Giftedness on Chemistry Students’ Self-Efficacy and Scientific Identity” at the same conference. The presentation, co-authored with Dr. Allee and Dr. Deana Ford, assistant professor of educational research, proceeded as planned despite the weather challenges.
Dr. Carol Isaac, associate professor of educational leadership, published the book Qualitative Pathways for Publication: A Guidebook for Scientists.
Dr. Jaclyn K. Murray, assistant professor of science education, and Dr. Alexandra T. St. Louis, postdoctoral research fellow, showcased their research at two science education conferences in January. At the Association of Science Teacher Educators annual meeting in Long Beach, California, they presented their study titled “Exploring Energy Concepts: Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Initial Models of Ice Melting” and a work-in-progress poster titled “Developing a Model-Based Argumentation Critique Tool for Preservice Elementary Teachers.” They also facilitated two workshops at the Georgia Science Teachers Association conference in Columbus. The workshops focused on facilitating teachers’ use of modeling instructional tools and implementing virtual simulations to develop modeling-based argument-focused discussion skills in K-12 science classrooms.
Dr. Leah Panther, associate professor of literacy education, and Dr. Lucy Gitonga, assistant professor of special education, with doctoral student Rosi Sanchez and Georgia educators Alaa Hedeeb and Ebonie Cleaves, published an article titled “Book Expansion for Language Justice” in the International Literacy Association’s journal The Reading Teacher.
Dr. Katherine Perrotta, assistant professor of middle grades and secondary education, presented her study titled “Students who teach: A study of youth perspectives of education as a career pathway” at the Georgia Educational Research Association conference.
College of Health Professions
Dr. Gwendolyn Cattledge, professor of public health practice, presented “Racial Disparities in Lung Cancer: A Focus on Black Populations in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi” at the Lung Cancer Health Equity Summit on Nov. 18, 2024, in Suwanee.
Dr. Huey Chen, professor of public health, and Liliana Morosanu, instructor of public health, co-authored an article titled “Aligning evaluation approaches with context: Reductionism, system thinking, and pragmatic synthesis” and an article titled “Education evaluation in Singapore: Current practices and recommendations for future Directions” published in Asia Pacific Journal of Education.
Dr. Cheryl Gaddis, associate professor of public health, co-authored an article titled “Challenges and Lessons Learned in Managed Web-Based Survey Fraud for the Garnering Effective Outreach and Research in Georgia for Impact Alliance-Community Engagement Alliance Survey Administrations” published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research Public Health Surveillance.
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Dr. Abigail P. Dowling, associate professor of history, published the edited volume of Medieval Work, Worship, and Power Persuasive and Silenced Voices with Nancy Ann McLoughlin and Tanya Stabler Miller.
Dr. Anastasia Kerr-German, assistant professor of biological psychology and neuroscience, was nominated to become a member of Sigma Xi. Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, is the international honor society of science and engineering. Founded in 1886, Sigma Xi is one of the oldest and largest scientific organizations in the world and has a distinguished history of service to science and society for more than 125 years. To become a member of Sigma Xi, one must meet certain requirements including being a full-time faculty member in a science or engineering field, having a record of research or scholarship worthy of recognition, and being nominated by two current Sigma Xi members.
Dr. James Davis May, assistant professor of English and director of creative writing, published two poems in the inaugural issue of Mark, and The Sewanee Review featured his appreciation of Seamus Heaney’s poem “Oysters” on its website.
Dr. Rebecca McKee, assistant professor of biology, published an article titled “Navigating new threats: Prey naïveté in native mammals” in the Journal of Animal Ecology.
Dr. Clara Mengolini, associate professor of Spanish, published an article titled “When Terror Becomes Festival” in Society for the Study of the American Gothic in December 2024.
Dr. Chinekwu Obidoa, associate professor of global health studies and Africana studies, authored a review of a book by R. Sooryamoorthy and Nene Ernest Khalema titled The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Africa in the Journal of Global South Studies.
Dr. Tyler B. Parker, assistant professor of political science, published an article titled “Accepting Appreciation: Partner Perceptions and Major Non-NATO Ally Designations” in the Journal of Global Security Studies.
Dr. Jeremy Rae, visiting lecturer of biology, attended the Science Writers Annual Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, in November 2024. A member of the National Association of Science Writers, Dr. Rae attended this premiere event to network with like-minded individuals interested in science writing and journalism. Almost 1,000 people registered for the conference, which ran over four days and included day trips to nearby research institutions. Among the daily activities and seminars was a session hosted by various senior magazine publishers and editors, including Nature: Careers, Scientific American, C&EN and American Scientist, who were there to offer one-on-one advice to budding science writers. Funding for attending the event was provided by the Mercer University Biology Department.
College of Pharmacy
Dr. Mahavir Bhupal Chougule, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences, served as a scientific expert on the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists nano community “Ask the Experts” session titled “About the characterization of Nanoparticles” on Jan. 27. He was also an invited speaker for the research presentation titled “Hydrophobic drug-loaded lipidic and hydrophilic siRNA-loaded biopharma-engineered polymeric nanoparticles conjugated with targeting peptide for treating lung cancer” at the Future of Pharmaceutical Drug Development: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities international conference held Sept. 13-14, 2024.
Dr. Raquibul Hasan, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences, received a $2.98 million research grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, a division of the National Institutes of Health. The funding will support his work on how statins — commonly prescribed to lower cholesterol — may also provide a new and immediate way to reduce blood pressure. This grant is the largest received by the College of Pharmacy from the NIH.
Dr. Leisa Marshall, clinical professor of pharmacy practice, was appointed as an affiliate faculty member in the Mercer University Center for Gerontology.
Dr. Nader Moniri, associate dean for research and professor of pharmaceutical sciences, and graduate student Razan Teyani published an article titled “Biased agonism at free-fatty acid receptor-4 (FFA4/GPR120)” in Pharmacology & Therapeutics. Dr. Moniri also co-authored an article titled “Sotorasib for the treatment of locally advanced/metastatic non-small cell lung cancer” published in Future Oncology.
Dr. Reid Proctor, assistant professor, and Dr. Renee Hayslett, associate professor, co-authored an article titled “Implementation of Moodle, an open-source solution for Team-Based Learning” in the Journal of Teaching and Learning with Technology.
College of Professional Advancement
Dr. Tim Craker, associate professor of comparative literature and philosophy, presented a paper in October at the American Association of Colleges and Universities 2024 Conference on Global Learning in Washington, D.C., titled “World Humanities: Making the Case for Global Learning in the Arts and Humanities.”
Dr. Zhiling Long, assistant professor of computer science, received an AWS Academy Educator badge from Amazon Web Services Training and Certification, which recognizes instructors from higher education institutions who are qualified to teach the academy’s cloud computing curriculum. The curriculum is free to higher education institutions, and it prepares students to pursue industry-recognized certifications and in-demand jobs in cloud computing and applications.
Dr. Stefanie Sevcik, assistant professor of writing and interdisciplinary studies, delivered a virtual lecture for the students and faculty at Saints Cyril and Methodius University in North Macedonia titled “Gender, Popular Culture, and the American Election” on Dec. 18, 2024.
School of Business
Dr. Szabolcs Blazsek, professor of economics, published with student Morgan Hall an article in Applied Economics titled “New score-driven scale and shape interactions: An application to international stock indices;” and an article with Dr. Allen Lynch, associate professor of economics and quantitative methods, and student Robert A. Smith titled “Outlier-robust unit root tests for score-driven models: critical values and applications.” Dr. Blazsek also published articles with students Dejun Kong and Samantha R. Shadoff titled “Within-regime volatility dynamics for observable- and Markov-switching score-driven models” in Finance Research Letters and “Observable or latent Markov chains for score-driven regime-switching volatility?” in Applied Economics. Additionally, Dr. Blazsek published two working papers: “Anthropogenic effects of climate change: Further evidence from a fractionally integrated ice-age model” with A. Escribano and A. Licht and “Extrinsic Mortality in the United States: Socioeconomic Effects of the Global Pandemic” with J. Drummond.
Dr. Reza Maihami, assistant professor of supply chain management and analytics, published an article titled “Supply disruptions and the problem of pricing, advertising, and sourcing strategies in a retail duopoly market” in Annals of Operations Research, which is among the top journals in the field of decision-making and operations research. Dr. Maihami also presented “Using an Analytical Approach to Ensure Fair Vaccine Allocation in the Early Stages of a Pandemic” and “Optimal Inventory Control Strategies for Closed-Loop Multi-Echelon Supply Chains Handling Deteriorating Products with Probabilistic Demand” at the Decision Sciences Institute 55th Annual Conference in Phoenix. The conference is one of the most prestigious in the field of decision science. Dr. Maihami worked on the projects with Dr. Ehsan Ahmadi, M.S.B.A. program director and assistant professor of management science.
Dr. Geoffrey M. Ngene, associate professor of financial economics, co-authored an article with Salome Oyuga and Dr. Edward Ochieng titled “Moderating influence of cultural values on the relationship between governance and risk perception in large-scale infrastructure development projects” in the International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management.
Dr. Carol Springer Sargent, associate professor of accounting; Dr. Blake Bowler, assistant professor of accounting; and Dr. C. Asa Lambert, assistant professor of finance, published an article titled “Examining Retirement Savings Building and Depleting Behavior” in Managerial Finance. Dr. Sargent also co-authored an article titled “Users’ Concerns and the Internet of Things (IoT) Risk Beliefs” in the Journal of Global Information Management. Additionally, Dr. Sargent is serving as faculty advisor for five students presenting their recommendations to an Institute of Management Accountants Case Competition on using cost-benefit analysis to identify NBA players to round out a term’s roster and increase the chances of winning a championship team.
School of Engineering
Dr. Hunmin Kim, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Dr. Anthony Choi, professor of electrical and computer engineering, were awarded a $9,550 contract for 2025 to continue their work on the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project, a NASA mission. As part of this effort, the team will launch scientific balloons at least three times to measure cosmic ray variations during the solar maximum and investigate related space science phenomena. The project team has been an active participant in the initiative since 2023, successfully launching balloons to observe the 2023 annular eclipse and the 2024 total eclipse in the subspace region.
School of Law
Margie Alsbrook, assistant professor of law, presented “How Should Legal Writing Professors Teach Citations in the Age of Generative AI?” during the January American Association of Law Schools annual meeting in San Francisco. She was also elected to the board of directors of Scribes, the American Society of Legal Writers, the oldest organization of its kind; and she published an article titled “Untangling Unreliable Citations” in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics.
Kaleb Byars, assistant professor of law, was honored with the 2024 Judge Clyde Reese Board of Visitors’ Excellence in Scholarship Award for his article titled “An ‘Essential’ Solution: Reworking the Essential Facilities Doctrine to Address Big Tech’s Harm to the Marketplace of Ideas,” which was published in 2023 in the Mississippi Law Journal.
Michelle Hook Dewey, law library director, was named to the Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction board of directors.
Jessica Herndon, assistant director of career services, spoke on the Mercer University Federal TRIO Programs panel as part of its celebrations for First Generation Student Week.
Steve Johnson, professor of law, was re-elected president of the Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction. The center awards the Excellence for the Future Award® that represents a prestigious honor awarded to the highest-scoring student in each law school class, showcasing their dedication, hard work and mastery of the subject.
Gary Simson, Macon chair in law and professor of law, received the 2024 Judge Clyde Reese Board of Visitors’ Excellence in Teaching Award.
Karen Sneddon, dean and professor, provided expert commentary for the MoneyGeek article titled “Navigating Life Insurance for Estate Planning.”
School of Medicine
Dr. Yahya A. Acar, director of medical simulation, was invited as a moderator in an online session titled “Tactical Medicine” and presented “Tactical Combat Casualty Care 2024 Updates” at the Fourth International Emergency Medicine Congress and the First International Sonocritic Congress on Emergency Medicine, held in Antalya, Turkey. Additionally, Dr. Acar, with Dr. Joanna Thomas, assistant professor of biomedical engineering; Dr. Robert Sarlay, assistant professor and vice-chair of pathology and clinical sciences education; Ryan O’Neill, emergency resident at Piedmont Macon North; and Christopher Hogan, clinical instructor, collaborated on a project titled “Design, Development, and Validation of a Low-Cost 3D Printed Cricothyrotomy Simulator,” which earned the Medical Education Poster Award (co-winners) at the Mercer School of Medicine Joint Research Symposium. Madison Kelly, a summer research student from the Macon campus, was the lead medical student, with contributions from medical student Andrew Callahan and engineering students Anna Fe Miller, Drake Altman, Tristan Brown, Joshua Richards and Meshwa Patel. The study emphasizes the development of cost-effective simulation tools to enhance procedural training.
Dr. Jennifer Barkin, professor of community medicine and OBGYN, in collaboration with student Chloe Johnson and colleagues from Imperial College London, published a commentary titled “The Connection between Climate Change and Perinatal Mental Health” in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
Dr. Andrew S. Benesh, assistant director of the Master of Family Therapy program, was elected president-elect of the Georgia Association for Marriage and Family Therapy beginning Jan. 1. Dr. Benesh also received three professional certifications: Geek Therapy Model Certification, Certified Mindfulness Informed Practitioner and Certified Clinical Autism Specialist.
Dr. Raghavan Chinnadurai, assistant professor of oncology, co-authored an article titled “Delphi-driven Consensus Definition for Mesenchymal Stromal Cells and Clinical Reporting Guidelines for Mesenchymal Stromal Cell-based Therapeutics’ in Cytotherapy” in Cytotherapy.
Dr. Ahmed Eltokhi, assistant professor of biomedical sciences, joined TV presenter Rana Arafa on Cairo Today — the oldest talk show in the Middle East — to discuss autism, its symptoms and his scientific research conducted at Mercer University and the University of Washington. Also, as part of an International Brain Research Organization collaborative grant with Dr. Raghda Ramadan of Nile University, Egypt, Dr. Eltokhi gave an educational presentation about his research at MUSM.
Dr. Edward C. Klatt, professor of pathology, served as a manuscript reviewer in January for the journal BMC Medical Education.
Dr. Michael Kramer, Rufus C. Harris Endowed Chair, professor of community medicine and director of the Center for Rural Health and Health Disparities, was selected to receive the 2024 federal Health Resource and Service Administration Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s Director’s Award. The award is presented to an individual who has made noteworthy national-level contributions to the health of infants, mothers, children, adolescents and children with special health care needs.
Dr. Ilana Chefetz Menaker, associate professor of pharmacology, served as a grant reviewer for the Michigan Ovarian Cancer Alliance, which promotes the early detection of ovarian cancer and improved treatment outcomes.
School of Music
Dr. Nathan Myrick, director of undergraduate studies and assistant professor of church music, published a peer-reviewed article titled “Authenticity and Purity in Worship Music” in Theology.
School of Theology
Dr. Denise Massey, professor of pastoral care and counseling, received an affiliate faculty appointment to the University’s Center for Gerontology. Dr. Massey also had her article titled “Insights for Pastoral Care inspired by Dr. deClaisse-Walford’s Writings about the Psalms” published online by Sage Publishing and in the Review & Expositor.
