Stetson-Hatcher School of Business
Szabolcs Blazsek, Ph.D., professor of economics, co-authored the paper “Hessian Filter-Based Gradient Scaling for Score-Driven Filters with Financial and Economic Applications,” which was selected as the best paper for the 57th EBES Conference, held in October in Prague. The paper was co-authored with Astrid Ayala, Ph.D., associate professor of economics and finance, and Alvaro Escribano of the University Carlos III of Madrid. More than 300 papers were presented at the conference.
C. Asa Lambert, Ph.D., assistant professor of finance, received the Best Economics and Finance Track Paper award at the 62nd annual meeting of the Southeastern Chapter of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, held Oct. 15-16 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Lambert presented the winning paper, “Playing with the Best: Conditional Peer Effects from Tiger Woods on the PGA Tour,” which was co-authored with Allen Lynch, Ph.D., professor of economics, and Szabi Blazsek, Ph.D., professor of economics.
Carol Springer Sargent, Ph.D., associate professor of accounting, published the article “Artificial intelligence ethical frameworks within organizations: Empirical validation of an instrument” in Issues in Information Systems. She also conducted Mercer’s fourth annual Accounting, Finance and Risk Management/Insurance “Meet the Firms” event where more than 100 students polished their professional skills through mock interviews and networking with representatives from professional firms.
Tift College of Education
Karyn Allee, Ph.D., associate professor of elementary education; Kimberly Sampson, Ph.D., a graduate of Tift College of Education’s doctoral program in curriculum and instruction; and Annemarie Kaczmarczyk, Ph.D., associate professor of elementary education, co-authored the article “Literature under pressure: Preparing educators to navigate censorship, legislation, and book bans,” published in The American Reading Forum Yearbook (2025-26). Allee and Kaczmarczyk, with Rebecca Buchanan, Ph.D., of College of the Atlantic; Erica Warren, Ph.D., a graduate of Tift College of Education’s doctoral program in curriculum and instruction; and Danielle Kugler, an adjunct professor at the University of Maine, co-authored the article “Writing for justice: Teacher candidates’ integration of social justice into interdisciplinary unit planning,” published in Social Studies Research and Practice.
Susie Morrissey, Ph.D., associate professor of mathematics education, with colleague Ozgul Kartal, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, presented “Examining relationships between the five practices and classroom discourse levels in elementary math classrooms” at the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education conference in Provo, Utah. The corresponding article was published in the conference proceedings.
Katherine Perrotta, Ph.D., associate professor of middle and secondary education, and Leah Panther, Ph.D., associate professor of literacy education, published the article “‘Things Happened There:’ Youth Participatory Action Research in Shermantown and Stone Mountain, Georgia” in the American Historical Association’s Perspectives on History newsmagazine.
School of Engineering
Seonghun Son, Ph.D., assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, was first author of the article “User Privacy Attacks through Self-Modifying Code Conflicts,” published in ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization, a peer-reviewed journal covering computer architecture and software optimization. Co-authored with Daniel Moghimi of Google Research and Berk Gulmezoglu of Iowa State University, the paper examines how processor behavior associated with self-modifying code can be exploited to compromise user privacy. Son is also serving on the program committees for the 2027 Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium and the 2027 ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (Asia CCS). He was selected for the Young Scholars Development Program at the 2026 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in The Hague, Netherlands. NDSS and Asia CCS are among the world’s leading research conferences in computer security. Additionally, he was selected to participate in the 2026 NSF SaTC Aspiring PIs Workshop, which supports early-career researchers in developing cybersecurity research proposals.
College of Health Professions
Robert Baeten, D.M.Sc., clinical associate professor in the department of physician assistant studies, was named a fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine. Baeten was also selected to receive the Presidential Citation Award from the Society of Critical Care Medicine.
Jimmie H. Smith, M.D., associate professor of public health practice, was appointed to represent the American Public Health Association on the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice.
School of Law
Sarah Gerwig, J.D., professor of law, planned and presented a nationwide training program — “What She Said: Gender Dynamics in Client Communication” — for the national federal public defender program, including Criminal Justice Act panel attorneys, on the theory and practice behind counseling women clients. Gerwig also worked with Doug Thompson, Ph.D., professor of history in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and director of the Spencer B. King Jr. Center for Southern Studies, to organize a presentation by Shareef Cousin, the youngest exoneree from Louisiana’s death row, and published the article “Shareef Cousin is Leading Through Healing” in the August/September issue of Macon Magazine. In January 2026, Gerwig was elected to the Executive Committee of the Clinical Legal Education Section of the Association of American Law Schools, an ongoing position with a presumptive multiyear term.
Jessica Herndon, assistant director of career services, was selected for the inaugural cohort of the Journal of First-generation Student Success Scholar Development Program, which demystifies peer review, strengthens scholarly evaluation skills and fosters a community of emerging reviewers committed to rigorous, meaningful scholarship. She was also selected to serve on the Association for the Study of Higher Education’s Graduate Student Network Membership Committee from November 2026 through November 2027.
Meagan Hurley, J.D., associate professor of law, provided testimony in August and September regarding habeas corpus procedure and litigation for the Georgia House of Representatives Blue Ribbon Committee on Post-Conviction Litigation Reform.
Ishaq Kundawala, J.D., Southeastern Bankruptcy Law Institute and W. Homer Drake Jr. Endowed Chair in Bankruptcy Law, presented a one-hour continuing legal education program on ethics in bankruptcy practice at the Middle District of Georgia Bankruptcy Law Institute’s Annual Seminar held on Sept. 25 in Macon. Several Mercer Law students accompanied Kundawala to the seminar, gaining a valuable opportunity to deepen their understanding of bankruptcy practice, engage with members of the bankruptcy bench and bar, and network with judges and practitioners from across the Middle District of Georgia.
David T. Ritchie, J.D., director of international initiatives and professor of law and philosophy, was selected as a researcher at the UNESCO International Center for AI Research and Ethics.
Craig Senn, J.D., professor of law, had his article “Cloudy Causation in Sexual Harassment Cases” accepted for publication by the Wake Forest Law Review, to be published in Spring 2027.
Scott Titshaw, J.D., professor of law, received the Harry Harkins Lifetime Achievement Award from the Stonewall Bar Association of Georgia during the Georgia LGBT+ Bar Association’s 2026 awards dinner at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. He also served as a panelist for Nelson Mullins’ national webinar on issues facing LGBTQ+ immigrants, including immigration enforcement and human rights.
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
David A. Davis, Ph.D., professor of English, presented the paper “Bad Boys Make Good Roads: Infrastructure and Incarceration in Modernist Literature” at the Jim Crow Modernism symposium at the City University of New York.
Gordon Johnston, Ph.D., professor of English, offered his fourth presentation of “A River Runs Through Us,” reading his poems and nonfiction about the Flint and Ocmulgee rivers Sept. 29 at the Southwest Georgia Regional Library in Bainbridge. Johnston, selected as a speaker for the Georgia Circuit, Georgia Humanities’ speakers bureau celebrating America’s 250th, has also talked about the thousand-year human history along Georgia’s rivers in Atlanta, Jackson and Flovilla.
Marc Jolley, Ph.D., senior lecturer of philosophy and director of Mercer University Press, participated in a panel discussion for his edited collection, Thoreau and Philosophy, held at the Concord Museum in Concord, Massachusetts, on Oct. 1. He also presented the lecture “Thoreau Was a Philosopher, and Chances Are, You Are, Too” on Oct. 25 at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church in Concord, Massachusetts, during the Concord Festival of Authors.
Anastasia Kerr-German, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience, co-authored “Probing Executive Function in the Toddler Data Desert: A Touchscreen fNIRS Study of Working Memory and ADHD-Related Symptoms,” published in Behavioral Sciences. She also presented “Tiny Brains, Major Insights: Neural Recruitment During Inhibitory Control in Toddlers With and Without Familial Risk for ADHD” at the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry annual meeting held Oct. 26-31 in Atlanta.
Paul Lewis, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Roberts Department of Religion, participated in two webinars on ethics sponsored by the Polanyi Society. In the first, he responded to Allen Dyer’s book, Madness and the Political Divide. In the second, Dyer responded to Lewis’s book chapter, “Mapping the Territory for a Polanyian Ethic.”
Tyler B. Parker, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science, presented the paper “Bridging the Gulf: Comparing Mediation Approaches in the Gulf Cooperation Council” at the fall 2026 meeting of The Southeast Regional Middle East and Islamic Studies Society, held on Oct. 17 in Valle Crucis, North Carolina.
Rosalind Simson, Ph.D., associate professor of philosophy, authored the article “Should Dead People Be Forced to Save Lives? Pregnancy and Organ Donation After Brain Death” that will appear in the spring 2027 issue of the Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice.
Margaret Symington, Ph.D., professor emeritus of mathematics, gave the invited talk “Polyhedral Integral Affine Surfaces” at the Contemporary Trends in Hamiltonian Geometry conference, held on Sept. 27-Oct. 2 at the SwissMAP Research Station in Les Diablerets, Switzerland. She also gave the seminar talk “Mapping Symplectic K3 Surfaces” on Oct. 14 at Lancaster University, Lancaster, England.
Johnathan Yerby, Ph.D., associate professor of computer science, received the Best Paper Award at the 2026 International Association for Computer Information Systems conference for “Attribution Drift in Enterprise Monitoring: Governance, Employee Monitoring, and Cybersecurity Risk in the Age of Agentic AI,” which examines how organizations can govern employee monitoring as AI agents become more prevalent. Yerby also co-presented with Felix Jelen, a cybersecurity master’s student and assistant vice president of global education, on research related to Jelen’s thesis, “The Identity Trust Chain: A Governance Framework for Attribute-Level Identity Provenance and Assurance in Higher Education,” proposing a way to verify identity information while protecting privacy. Additionally, Yerby and cybersecurity undergraduate student Alexander Brown published “Surveillance Without Oversight? Public Perception of Automated License Plate Readers and Governance Challenges in Public Administration,” a study of public views on license-plate surveillance, privacy and oversight, in the journal Public Administration and Civil Service.
School of Medicine
Steve Carpenter, M.D., MACP, professor of medicine on the Savannah campus, received the American College of Physicians Georgia Chapter Laureate Award at the annual meeting on Oct. 10. The award honors Fellows and Masters of the American College of Physicians who have demonstrated by their example and conduct an abiding commitment to excellence in medical care, education or research, as well as service to their community, the Georgia Chapter and the American College of Physicians. It is the highest award bestowed by the chapter.
Tony Gryffin, Ph.D., associate professor of community medicine, co-authored with David Gu, M.D., associate professor of biomedical sciences, the research article “Inconsistencies in blood oxygen saturation following light-intensity physical activities,” published in the peer-reviewed journal Sport Sciences for Health. Data from the current study on an older adult group were compared to data collected from a fitness center group by medical student Jesurebor Ivbaze, ’27, during a previous summer bridge program. Study results documented unique differences which may relate to exercise format, age, health status or a combination.
Harold P. Katner, M.D., professor of internal medicine, presented the poster “Perinatal HIV-1 Transmission in the Era of Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy: Central and South-Central Georgia, USA” at the Society of Maternal Fetal Medicine Global Conference 2026 in the Netherlands. Perinatal HIV infections totaled 17 between 1999 and 2017. Changes in policies, management and interventions for the reduction of perinatal HIV transmission have led to no perinatal HIV transmissions in the clinic catchment area since 2017.
Carolyn A. Klatt, professor in the department of library and information science, published the article “Merck Manual Professional Version Review” in the Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries. She also served as a manuscript reviewer for Medical Science Educator.
Anthony J. Kondracki, Ph.D., assistant professor in the department of community medicine, and Sherrie Williams, Ph.D., director of the Project Management Office, were awarded a four-year, $3 million federal grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration for the project North Georgia Opioid Prevention and Education Network RCORP-Impact Project. Building upon collaborative efforts initiated in 2019, the project strengthens partnerships between the School of Medicine and community organizations in Gordon and Polk counties to expand opioid prevention, treatment and recovery support services in rural North Georgia. The initiative focuses on strengthening community-based recovery systems, improving access to care and supporting individuals and families affected by substance use disorders. The project is led by Williams, with Kondracki serving as co-project lead.
Manish Mishra, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the Master of Science in Preclinical Sciences program, and Angabin Matin, Ph.D., associate professor in the department of biomedical sciences, hosted the virtual roundtable discussion “Use of Pretests to Monitor Student Success During the Semester — A Retrospective Study” during the Association for STEMM Pathway and Bridge Programs’ 2026 Conference on Oct. 6.
Sarah Rotschafer, Ph.D., associate professor of neuroscience in the department of biomedical sciences, joined Mercer’s Pathways to Purpose on a fact-finding trip in the Dominican Republic. The trip explored options for improving autism awareness and detection in schools.
Iuliia Zhuravlova, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of anatomy and embryology in the biomedical sciences department, presented a Lightning Talk at the Virtual International Association of Medical Science Educators Forum on Oct. 20. Her oral presentation, “Power of second chances: Remediation policies in the Master of Preclinical Sciences program — a compassionate pathway for student success,” focused on new remediation policies introduced in academic year 2025-26 in the Master of Science in Preclinical Sciences program at the School of Medicine. In the project, Zhuravlova collaborated with leadership and teaching faculty in the program including: Manish Mishra, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the Master of Science in Preclinical Sciences program; Angabin Matin, Ph.D., associate professor; Stacy M. Jones, Ph.D., associate professor; Sandeep K. Meharwal, Ph.D., associate professor; and senior author Christy Bridges, Ph.D., associate dean of graduate programs.
Townsend School of Music
Nathan Myrick, Ph.D., associate professor of sacred music and director of the Sacred Spectrum Project, presented “What Counts as Participation?” at the 2nd Symposium of the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance’s Sacred Sounds and Spiritual Practices study group on Oct. 10 at the University of Szeged in Szeged, Hungary.
College of Nursing
Seongkum Heo, Ph.D., professor and Piedmont Healthcare Endowed Chair, published “The lived experience of sudden cardiac arrest survivors: A descriptive phenomenological study” in the Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing.
Justus Randolph, Ph.D., professor, co-authored “Assessing the Impact of High-Resolution Imaging on Statistical Validation of TESS Planet Candidates,” published in The Astronomical Journal. Randolph also co-authored “Mediating Role of Diabetes Self-Efficacy in the Relationship Between Knowledge and Self-Management in Individuals With Diabetes: A Cross-Sectional, Correlational Study,” with Seongkum Heo, Ph.D., professor, and Tammy Barbé, Ph.D., dean. The study was published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing.
Sonique Sailsman, Ph.D., assistant professor of nursing, presented at the Georgia Association of Nursing Students 74th Annual Convention held at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta. Her topic was “Recognizing Implicit Bias in Patient Care Assignments: Recommendations for Clinical Practice.”
College of Pharmacy
Ajay K. Banga, Ph.D., professor and chair of pharmaceutical sciences, received $99,904 in funding from a major undisclosed consumer health company for his project “Comparative and enhanced skin delivery of conjugated retinol derivatives.”
Mahavir Chougule, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences, co-authored “Review of Exosomes as Nanomedicine for Antimicrobial Delivery and Combating Antimicrobial Resistance,” published in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics.
Martin D’Souza, Ph.D., professor and director of Ph.D. programs, received $9,800 in funding from Emory University via the Georgia Center for Oncology Research and Education for his project “Phase I Dose Escalation Study of the Use of ACU-D1, a Topical Proteasome Inhibitor.”
Raquibul Hasan, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences, co-authored “CIO-IAA is a dual ETA/ETB receptor antagonist that suppresses endothelin-1-induced macrophage activation and inflammatory signaling,” published in Biochemical Pharmacology
College of Professional Advancement
Nadia G. Barnett, Ph.D., associate professor of human services and psychology, collaborated with Sabrina L. Walthall, Ph.D., professor of science; Paul H. Atandoh, Ph.D., assistant professor of statistics in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Stephen D. Hill, Ph.D., senior associate dean and professor of mechanical engineering in the School of Engineering; and Shonteria L. Johnson, Ph.D., senior lecturer of biology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, to present “The Three-Pillar AI Integration Framework: A Conceptual Practice Model for Teaching, Scholarship and Service” at the 2026 Amazon Web Services Machine Learning University Fall AI Teaching and Research Symposium, held Sept. 21-22 in Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia. Presented during the faculty research poster session at Amazon’s Headquarters 2, the team’s work introduced a human-centered framework for integrating artificial intelligence into teaching, scholarship and service. The symposium convened educators, researchers and industry professionals from institutions nationwide to advance innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration and AI education.
W. David Lane, Ph.D., professor of counseling, gave an invited presentation as an expert supervisor for the “Supervision of the Supervisor: Supervision Role Play” workshop at the Licensed Professional Counselors Association of Georgia’s Supervision Summit on Oct. 2.
Esther McCartney, Ph.D., assistant professor of counseling, presented at the Western Association for Counselor Education and Supervision in Reno, Nevada, in October. She presented the roundtable discussion “Minor clients but not minor issues: Preparing counselors to work with children and adolescents” and the poster “Storming or performing: Considerations in facilitating experiential groups.”
Tara Overzat, Ph.D., visiting assistant professor of counseling, presented “Bridging divides in our warming world” as part of Atlanta Climate Week. She was hosted by Climate Lobby/Citizens’ Climate Education at the event held at the Atlanta Friends Meeting in Decatur.
Jacqueline S. Stephen, Ed.D., assistant professor and director of instructional and learning design, and Charlotte Whitehead, a 2026 graduate of the Human Resources and Talent Development program, published “Nontraditional Student Preferences and Experiences: Implications for Virtual Synchronous Sessions” in the Journal of Continuing Higher Education. The mixed-methods study examined undergraduate and graduate students’ preferences, experiences and barriers related to virtual synchronous sessions in online and blended courses. Findings highlighted the importance of concise, purpose-driven sessions, flexible participation, access to recordings and consideration of students’ work, caregiving responsibilities and learning environments. Stephen was also selected to serve as a peer reviewer for the Fulbright Specialist Program, a U.S. Department of State initiative administered by World Learning that supports short-term international academic and professional exchanges. She participated in three review cycles, reviewing more than a dozen applications for the Fulbright Specialist Roster and helping identify qualified professionals for international collaboration, institutional capacity building and cross-cultural exchange.
Stefanie Sevcik, Ph.D., assistant professor of writing and interdisciplinary studies, won a CLS Refresh award, a language learning opportunity for Critical Language Scholarship alumni funded by the U.S. Department of State. Sevcik will complete 20 hours of one-on-one tutoring in Arabic in preparation for her Mercer trip to Morocco in May 2027.
Ramya Tekumalla, Ph.D., assistant professor of data science in the Department of Informatics and Mathematics, received the department’s first grant from the National Institutes of Health for her proposal “Neuro-Symbolic Models for Explaining Epidemic Dynamics (EpiXplain).” EpiXplain is a collaborative research project between Georgia State University and Arizona State University that combines machine learning and neuro-symbolic models with domain knowledge about epidemic dynamics. The goal is to develop models that learn patterns from complex data and also explain those patterns, helping researchers better understand how epidemics affect populations. Tekumalla will focus primarily on the project’s data pipeline and data curation, building on the pipeline she developed during her Ph.D. at Georgia State for large-scale social media data (Twitter, 2018-24) and COVID-19-related data (2020-24). She will also train and mentor students in data curation, preprocessing and preparation of large-scale datasets for machine learning research, giving them hands-on experience with real-world epidemiological and social media data.
Staff and Administration
Ken Boyer, associate vice president for Auxiliary Services, and Jay Bonney, assistant director of Auxiliary Services, presented the webinar “Building Smarter Access Control” for the National Association of Campus Card Users on Oct. 1, highlighting Mercer’s award-winning access control program with Genea and Illumia. Mercer and the Auxiliary Services team were recognized with the Distinction Award for Innovation Excellence at Momentum 2026 in the spring for the new cloud-based access control system with Genea and Illumia. Boyer also graduated from the Coca-Cola Community Ambassadors program on Sept. 30 during a ceremony held at the World of Coke in Atlanta. The program gave participants insight into Coca-Cola operations and introduced them to other community partners. Through quarterly sessions, ambassadors gain insight into Coke operations and participate in special projects and initiatives. In addition, members learned about and shared their own institutions with other ambassadors and came together to enrich their communities.
