Fulbright College Announces 2025 Annual Faculty Teaching and Research Awards

Fulbright College Announces 2025 Annual Faculty Teaching and Research Awards
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The Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the U of A recently named the 2025 recipients of its annual outstanding teaching and research faculty awards, including:

  • Outstanding Teaching Award recipients Margaret Butcher, Margaret Hershberger and Shirin Saeidi
  • Outstanding Researcher Award recipients Robert Coridan, Joshua Smith and Claire Terhune
  • Outstanding Instructor Award recipient Chris Mazzanti
  • Outstanding Advisor Award recipient Kathleen Paul
  • J. Hillman Yowell Award for Excellence in Teaching recipient Miranda Sanders

"These recipients committed themselves to teaching, research, scholarship, mentorship, creative activity, community engagement and advancement in education," said Brian Raines, dean of Fulbright College.

"Because of this, each has significantly contributed to the success of students and the advancement of this college, university and community beyond," he added. "I want to celebrate and recognize them for being essential to the transformative work of Fulbright College."

FULBRIGHT COLLEGE OUTSTANDING TEACHING AWARD

The college honors up to three outstanding teachers annually. Selection is based on a letter of nomination, teaching evaluations and documentation about the nominee's teaching activities.

The 2025 recipients include:

Margaret Butcher, teaching associate professor in the Department of Communication.

Butcher is an associate professor and the director of the department's fully online communication program. She has worked at the U of A for more than 25 years and played an instrumental role in creating the online communication program, developing much of its core course content.

She is a certified QM Developer of online courses, and her work has been published in the International Journal of Learning and the Encyclopedia of Television. She also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Intercultural Communication Research.

Butcher has also received awards, including the John I. Sisco Excellence in Teaching Award and recognition as a Wally Cordes Chair.

Margaret Hershberger, teaching assistant professor and assistant chair in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Hershberger joined the university in 2014 and leads courses in physical chemistry and chemistry fundamentals. Her research explores how lab enrollment and activities affect student outcomes in associated general chemistry lectures.

Her work has been published in by the American Chemical Society, the Journal of Physical Chemistry and the Journal of Chemistry and Physics, and she has won several teaching awards.

Hershberger also serves as an adviser for chemistry and biochemistry majors and is a member of the Chemistry for the Web and Publishing Community Group of the W3C, a co-director of Chemistry Week through the American Chemical Society and faculty adviser for the Chemistry Club and the U of A's chapter of ASTRA.

Shirin Saeidi, associate professor in the Department of Political Science and director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies

Saeidi joined the university in 2018, serving as the first female leader of the Middle East Studies Program since its founding in the early 1990s.

She's the author of Women and the Islamic Republic: How Gendered Citizenship Conditions the Iranian State and has published numerous other works in journals like Gender & History, Citizenship Studies, The International Journal of Middle East Studies, The International Studies Review and The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences.

Saeidi also serves as a member of the Chancellor's Commission on Women, was a technical adviser to the United Nations' Women's program and has received multiple awards and numerous prestigious grant allocations. 

FULBRIGHT COLLEGE OUTSTANDING RESEARCHER AWARD

The honor is awarded to up to three outstanding researchers. Awardees are chosen based on a nomination letter, the nominee's research accomplishments documented in a one-page summary of his or her research outlining its importance, a list of 10 publications, supporting evidence of exceptional performance in research, his or her curriculum vitae and an evaluation by the departmental chairperson.

The 2025 recipients include:

Robert Coridan, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Coridan joined the U of A in 2015 and serves as the principal investigator of the Hierarchically Structured Materials Group. He is also an affiliate of the Materials Science and Engineering graduate program.

Currently, Coridan serves as a primary or co-investigator on four grant projects through the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, totaling over $2.2 million in combined funding.

He is a former Connor Endowed Faculty Fellow and received an Early Career Award from the Department of Energy. He has also received several major grants from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

Additionally, Coridan's work has been published in prominent publications such as Energy & Environmental Science and The Journal of Physical Chemistry.

Joshua Smith, associate professor in the Department of English

Smith joined the university in 2011, formerly serving as the director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies program before becoming associate department chair in 2023.

His research concerns the multilingual literary culture of high medieval Britain. He is especially interested in discovering networks of textual exchange between Wales and England, and in studying the literary culture of Britain and Ireland during the long 12th century.

Smith received a prestigious scholarly Translations and Editions grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and serves as a senior fellow of the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography.

He is president of the Celtic Studies Association of North America and the author of several monographs, articles, books and chapters.

Claire Terhune, associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Anthropology

Terhune joined the U of A in 2014, serving as an associate professor of biological anthropology and leader of the Terhune Lab.

Her research focuses on primate, human and fossil hominin cranial anatomy and evolution. She employs a variety of techniques in her research, including geometric morphometrics and microCT, while conducting ongoing field research in Romania.

Terhune has been published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology, the Journal of Human Evolution, the Journal of Morphology and other prestigious publications.

She also serves as the lead scientific adviser for the microCT Imaging Consortium for Research and Outreach and lead investigator on several grants, including those from the Arkansas Bioscience Institute and the National Science Foundation.

FULBRIGHT COLLEGE OUTSTANDING INSTRUCTOR AWARD

This award recognizes excellence within Fulbright College, honoring a distinguished instructor for their dedication to educational advancement. Recipients are carefully selected based upon letters of nomination from colleagues, authorities, peers and students, as well as a comprehensive review of their curriculum vitae and supplementary teaching engagements.

The 2025 recipient is:

Chris Mazzanti, instructor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and director of the Teaching Laboratories

Mazzanti became a U of A faculty member in 2011, but he was an integral part of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry even before then, as he is an alumnus of the department's M.S. and Cell and Molecular Biology Ph.D. programs.

Mazzanti is the author of the university chemistry manuals that are used throughout all U of A chemistry courses, as well as several articles and presentations included in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and the Biophysical Society.

He also provides supervisory support to the university teaching labs and serves on the department's curriculum committee, providing critical hands-on support to chemistry and biochemistry majors throughout their college careers.

FULBRIGHT COLLEGE OUTSTANDING ADVISOR AWARD

This award recognizes a faculty member's exceptional contributions to the departmental or college advising program. Awardees are chosen based on a letter of recommendation from someone who is acquainted with the candidate's work as an adviser, along with letters of support from colleagues and former students.

The 2025 recipient is:

Kathleen Paul, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and director of the pre-dental studies program

Paul is an assistant professor and dental anthropologist who leads the U of A's pre-dental studies program and the Dental Phenomics Laboratory.

Paul is also the co-primary investigator of the Global Dental Phenomics Project, which has yielded a freely accessible scan and genealogy repository for teaching and research. She is also a member of Proyecto Tlatelolco, a collaborative bioarcheological initiative with researchers spanning multiple institutions in the U.S. and Mexico.

Her work impacts students across the college as they apply to dental programs and complete honors and master's theses, as she has advised, supported and mentored 448 undergraduate students and four graduate students in the 2024-2025 academic year alone.

J. HILLMAN YOWELL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING

This award is given to a Fulbright College graduate assistant in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the teaching mission of the college and university. Awardees are chosen based on a letter of nomination, a recommendation by the departmental chairperson, assessments of classroom visitations and other types of departmental review, his or her curriculum vitae, letters of support from faculty and peers as well as current and former students, a list of courses taught at the university and a summary of student evaluations for each course.

The 2025 recipient is:

Miranda Sanders, senior graduate assistant in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Sanders is a Ph.D. candidate in inorganic chemistry and serves as a teaching assistant for Organic Chemistry I and II, as well as Chemistry in the Modern World.

She provides crucial supervision for the lab portion of these courses and leads supplemental instruction programs that optimize student involvement and success.

Her work has promoted larger university efforts to support students in these historically difficult courses, serving as an essential touchpoint for chemistry and biochemistry students for over 12 semesters.

Contacts

Payton Willhite, digital and content support specialist
Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences
479-575-6644, powillhi@uark.edu

Grant Schol, associate director of communications
Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences
501-207-1602, gschol@uark.edu

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