25 OSU Faculty Earn Tenure
Our talented and dedicated faculty advance research, share their creative work, and prepare undergraduate and graduate students for lifelong success. Their overall contributions lead to a better society. Decisions to promote and award tenure are among the most important made by the University. We are deeply proud of these 25 faculty members and wish them warm congratulations on their achievements.
Gerrad Jones Associate Professor | Biological and Ecological Engineering
Dr. Gerrad Jones has experience in biology, ecology, hydrology and hydraulics, environmental chemistry and engineering, and inorganic geochemistry. While seemingly disparate, many environmental problems are complex and cannot be solved with the tools from a single discipline. His interests focus on understanding how ecosystem health is driven by complex interactions between biological, chemical, and physical processes. Often, synergistic/antagonistic interactions among variables can mask true patterns. Without understanding these complex interactions, we can misinterpret our data, which can lead to poor management decisions or designs. By embracing environmental complexity, we can build resilient systems that work with nature instead of against it.
Josh Stewart Associate Professor | Agricultural Education and Agricultural Sciences
Josh Stewart is an Associate Professor of Agricultural Education in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Oregon State University. He primarily teaches graduate courses in the Agricultural Education program, where he also serves as the program Director. Among other duties, Josh oversees agriculture teacher candidate placement, supervision, and licensure. Josh’s research interests include pedagogical content knowledge development in early career teachers, experiential learning in agriculture teacher preparation, and attrition and retention in agricultural education. Josh enjoys running, cycling, hiking, and golf, as well as time with his wife and two daughters.
Karthik Murali Associate Professor | Management, Entrepreneurship, and Supply Chain
Karthik Murali is an Associate Professor of Supply Chain and Logistics Management at Oregon State University. He teaches quantitative courses at the undergraduate and MBA levels including Operations Management, Supply Chain Modeling and Decision Analysis, and the Supply Chain Capstone. Karthik's research interests are in the areas of environmental sustainability and social justice in the contexts of food systems, consumer goods supply chains, and renewable energy technologies. His work has been published in the leading field journals Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and Production and Operations Management. In his spare time, he is most likely to be found birdwatching, hiking with his dog, or on the squash courts.
Dina Ribbink Associate Professor | Management, Entrepreneurship, and Supply Chain
Dina Ribbink is an Associate Professor of Operations Management in the College of Business at Oregon State University – Cascades. She received her Ph.D. from the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland in 2010. Dina earned her MS in Business Administration from Maastricht University, the Netherlands in 2003. Before joining the faculty at OSU-Cascades, Dina was at the Ivey Business School at Western University, Canada. Dina's primary focus in research is on contractual buyer-supplier relationships, with a focus on international relationships and a special emphasis on behavioral experiments. In addition, she researches in the related fields of food supply chains as well as supply chains of emergency relief aid. Dina’s research has been published in top tier journals in the field like the Journal of Operations Management, International Journal of Operation and Production Management and Transportation Journal, as well as the Journal of Service Management, the Journal of Transportation Research Forum, and Managing Service Quality.
Kim Bernard Professor | Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Dr. Kim Bernard is a Biological Oceanographer who has conducted research in a broad range of marine ecosystems across the world’s major oceans. Central to her work is a desire to understand the effects of climate change and other anthropogenic disturbances on zooplankton ecology, with implications for the structure, function, and services of marine ecosystems. Her research has made significant contributions towards understanding global trends in the response of zooplankton to climate change, resolving the physical drivers of zooplankton patchiness and dispersal to aid in development of marine protected areas, and identifying survival strategies of zooplankton in extreme polar environments.
Kristen Buck Professor | Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Kristen Buck is a seagoing chemical oceanographer in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. Her research is focused on the biogeochemical cycling of trace metals in the marine environment, with particular emphasis on the role of metal-binding organic ligands in the cycling of iron, copper, and nickel. Her recent work with the U.S. GEOTRACES program has contributed to advances in understanding of iron cycling in the global ocean across spatial and temporal scales. She has served in leadership positions in The Oceanography Society (TOS), the Association for Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), and the Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) group, and as a Co-Chair of the biannual Ocean Sciences Meeting. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for Limnology and Oceanography: Letters.
Melanie Fewings Professor | Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Melanie Fewings joined the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences as an Associate Professor in 2018. She earned her Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program. Her work combines observations from ships, underwater moorings, and satellites to reveal the underlying processes that control coastal ocean currents and water temperature, including along Oregon and Washington States, enabling these processes to be more accurately represented in climate projections. She works across disciplinary boundaries, translating coastal ocean physics to solve biological, ecological, and fisheries oceanography problems and co-leading the NOAA Sanctuaries Task Force.
Jennifer Hutchings Professor | Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Jenny Hutchings became interested in Polar science in childhood. Leading her to sea-ice geophysics. Ph.D. studies under the supervision of Dr. Seymour Laxon, University College London, and a brief stint at the UK Met Office, developed her interest in sea-ice dynamics in forecast and climate models. After a post-doc for Bill Hibler, then soft funded researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, she landed at Oregon State University. Over 25 years she has worked to improve understanding of the relationship between loading on pack ice and its response, leading field campaigns to better constrain these ad-hoc models.
Nicholas Siler Associate Professor | Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Nicholas Siler is an Assitant Professor of Atmospheric Science at OSU and the Associate State Climatologist for Oregon. He teaches courses in climate science, meteorology, mathematical methods, and data analysis. His research focuses on understanding the water cycle and its response to climate change across a wide range of spatial scales, from small watersheds to the entire globe. He holds an AB in Physics from Harvard College and a PhD in Atmospheric Science from the University of Washington. He is a veteran of the US Air Force.
Lucy L. Purgason Associate Professor | Counselor, Adult, and Higher Education
Dr. Lucy L. Purgason, is an associate professor of Counseling at Oregon State University-Cascades. A licensed school counselor, she brings five years of service in schools, including work with newcomer immigrant and refugee students. Her research centers on recognizing and incorporating the cultural strengths of students and their families. In addition, she pursues scholarship on counseling mentoring and supervision. She is a recipient of research awards from practitioner and academic outlets. As co-director of the Department of Education grant-funded program PATH-SC, she endeavors to enhance the number and diversity of school counselors in high-needs, rural schools in Central Oregon.
Samuel Briggs Associate Professor | Nuclear Science and Engineering
Samuel Briggs’ research revolves around addressing materials challenges for next-generation nuclear reactor designs, including degradation in liquid metal and molten salt coolants and high-temperature, high-radiation conditions. He is particularly interested in the combined effect of simultaneous corrosion and mechanical stress on the accelerated breakdown of metal alloys in extreme energy environments. His research group employs unique experimental facilities and advanced characterization techniques to develop a robust understanding of phenomena affecting long-term materials performance in advanced nuclear systems. Dr. Briggs received his B.S. from Oregon State University, and his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Yue Cao Associate Professor | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Yue Cao joined OSU in 2018. Before that, he has worked at Amazon Prime Air, Apple, Halliburton, and Oak Ridge National Lab. His research interests include power electronics, motor drives, and energy storage with applications in renewable energy integration and transportation electrification. He has been a PI or co-PI of projects sponsored by NSF, DOE, Navy, Portland General Electric, Amazon Prime Air, and Grainger Foundation. He received 2023 OSU Promising Scholar award, 2022 NSF CAREER award, 2022 NAE FOE fellowship, and 2020 OSU Learning Innovation Grant. He is an IEEE Senior Member and an associate editor of two IEEE Transactions.
Joseph Davidson Associate Professor | Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering
Dr. Davidson received his B.S. from the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY in 2004. After serving in the Army for five years, Dr. Davidson worked as a project manager for the CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company at Hanford, WA from 2009 to 2012. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. from Washington State University and was a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2016 to 2018. Dr. Davidson's group performs fundamental and applied research at the intersection of mechanics, machine learning, and controls. Current areas of emphasis include robotic manipulation and soft robotics.
Naomi Fitter Associate Professor | Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering
Dr. Fitter’s past degrees include a B.S. and B.A. in mechanical engineering and Spanish from the University of Cincinnati and an M.S.E. and Ph.D. in robotics and mechanical engineering and applied mechanics from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her doctoral work in the GRASP Laboratory’s Haptics Group and was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the University of Southern California Interaction Lab from 2017 to 2018. Her past experiences in industry include fluid modeling and simulation for the Procter & Gamble Oral Care Division and wearable health monitoring device development and evaluation for Microsoft Research. As a member of the Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems (CoRIS) Institute, Dr. Fitter aims to equip robots with the ability to engage and empower people in interactions from playful high-fives to challenging physical therapy routines.
Meagan Wengrove Associate Professor | Civil and Construction Engineering
Dr. Meagan Wengrove is a coastal engineer and scientist who leads the Coastal Boundary Dynamics Research Group at Oregon State University. Their research focus is on the physics of natural and engineered coastal systems. Including creating engineering guidance for the use of coastal dunes and dynamic cobble revetments for coastal protection, quantifying mechanisms of ice-ocean boundary layer interaction that contribute to melting of tidewater glaciers and icebergs, and exploring the technology of distributed fiber optic sensing as an ocean sensing technology. Wengrove also enjoys teaching both graduate and undergraduate classes at Oregon State focused on coastal dynamics, programming and sensors, and fluid mechanics.
Matthew Powers Associate Professor | Forest Engineering, Resources and Management
Dr. Matthew Powers, a leading researcher in silviculture, holds a Ph.D. in Forest Science (2008) from Michigan Technological University. Specializing in sustainable wood and biomass production, biodiversity conservation, and climate change adaptation, his work evaluates tradeoffs among diverse management objectives. With an extensive academic background, including an MS in Forest Ecology and Management and a BS in Biology, Matthew focuses on understanding how silvicultural practices impact forest structure and function. His dedication extends to unraveling the intricate processes driving stand development and spatial complexity following management activities, providing valuable insights into the dynamics of forest ecosystems.
Marit Bovbjerg Associate Professor | Nutrition and Public Health
Marit Bovbjerg’s research focuses on US maternity care, particularly midwifery and community birth for low-risk women. Marit is also interested in physical activity during pregnancy and the postpartum period, and potential effects on maternal outcomes.
Ana Milena Ribero Associate Professor | Writing, Literature, and Film
Ana Milena Ribero joined the School of Writing, Literature, and Film in 2016 after receiving her PhD from the University of Arizona. Her research and teaching focuses on rhetorics of im/migration, rhetorics of race, critical literacies and pedagogies, and Women of Color feminisms. She is the author of Dreamer Nation: Immigration, Activism, and Neoliberalism (University of Alabama Press, 2023), which tells the rhetorical story of Dreamers and the activism in which they engaged during the Obama years. Her award-winning scholarship can be found in Rhetoric Review, Peitho, Performance Research, and Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society.
Jennifer Richter Associate Professor | Writing, Literature, and Film
Jennifer Richter teaches graduate and undergraduate creative writing, literature, and narrative medicine courses and arranges multigenre student collaborations between SWLF and other schools. Her first poetry collection, Threshold, was a national bestseller and was chosen by former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey for the Crab Orchard Series; her second collection, No Acute Distress, was a Crab Orchard Editor’s Selection; both were named Oregon Book Award Finalists. Richter’s new collection, Dear Future, won the Tenth Gate Prize for midcareer poets. Before arriving at OSU, Richter spent six years as a Wallace Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer in Poetry at Stanford University.
Shaozeng Zhang Associate Professor | Language, Culture, and Society
Shaozeng Zhang is an Anthropologist whose research strives to understand the development and use of scientific knowledge and technological tools in environmental and cultural change. He’s also committed to anthropological methodological innovation for academic and applied research. Dr. Zhang has been working largely in the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS), environmental anthropology, and applied anthropology with geographic foci in Brazil and the U.S. Dr. Zhang received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine, and his M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Peking University in Beijing, China.
Molly Burke Associate Professor | Integrative Biology
Dr. Molly Burke was born and raised in the Los Angeles suburbs and earned her B.S. in biology from UCLA in 2004. She attended graduate school at UC Irvine, where she studied the evolutionary biology and genetics of aging. She earned her PhD in 2010, and her doctoral work was published in Nature and featured in the New York Times. She continued to broaden her perspective as an evolutionary geneticist through postdoctoral positions at UC Irvine and then UC San Diego. Dr. Burke established her lab in the Integrative Biology Department at Oregon State University in 2015. Since then, her lab has been doing experiments with yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) to test fundamental questions in evolutionary biology. Current projects include: searching for genetic mechanisms that may potentiate health and reproduction at old ages, studying how to traits relevant to human health and medicine evolve in real time, and predicting how populations will evolve in response to the stresses imposed by global climate change. This work is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health. In addition to running her lab, Dr. Burke teaches upper-division classes in genetics and evolution at OSU, and she helps coordinate IB's graduate program.
Jamie Cornelius Associate Professor | Integrative Biology
Jamie Cornelius studies the behavioral and physiological adaptations of birds to environmental challenges such as winter storms, wildfire smoke and food shortages. Her work has appeared in journals such as Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Biology Letters, TREE and Hormones and Behavior, and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, The Nature Conservancy and National Geographic. Jamie earned her B.S. from University of Washington and her Ph.D. from University of California-Davis, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology in Germany. She was a 2013 Fulbright Fellow in Russia and a 2022 National Geographic Society Explorer. Prior to her appointment in Integrative Biology, she was an Assistant Professor at Eastern Michigan University. Jamie is also a singer-songwriter and is active in the Art-Sci collaborative at Oregon State University.
Maude David Associate Professor | Microbiology and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Dr. Maude David is a faculty with a split appointment in the department of Microbiology and the department of Pharmaceutical Sciences since 2018. Dr. David’s research is focused on the gut-brain-microbiota axis, and in developing new analytical methods to integrate multi-omics data from of microbial community from a variety of ecosystems. She has worked on implementing a transdisciplinary program, with notably industry partners on autism spectrum disorder, and many interdisciplinary collaborations across microbiome fields. Dr. David is particularly invested in mentoring: in the last 5 years she has advised 7 graduate students, 14 undergraduates students who have received altogether over 30 awards, and she is the recipient of the Breaking Barriers in Education award – Oregon State University President’s Commission on the Status of Women – recognizes OSU member whose high impact teaching and mentoring has paved the way to advance gender equity in higher education.
Chad Giusti Associate Professor | Mathematics
Chad Giusti is a mathematician working in the area of topological data analysis, which characterizes mesoscale and qualitative structure in complex systems. His research involves both mathematical foundations and applications, principally in areas of neuroscience. This work appeared in journals such as PNAS, the Journal of Topology, and Crelle's, and has been supported by the NSF, AFOSR, and AFRL. He grew up in Oregon, and obtained his BS and PhD in mathematics at the University of Oregon in 2003 and 2010, respectively. Prior to his current appointment, he was an Assistant Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Delaware, a Warren Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, and held postdoctoral positions at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and Willamette University.
Kyriakos Stylianou Associate Professor | Chemistry
Dr. Kyriakos C. Stylianou, originally from Larnaca, Cyprus, earned his Ph.D. in materials chemistry at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, under the guidance of Prof. Matthew J. Rosseinsky and co-supervision of Prof. Darren Bradshaw. His doctoral research focused on the rational design, synthesis and characterization of open porous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for advanced applications. Following completion of his Ph.D., he was awarded the prestigious Marie Curie fellowship, enabling him to join the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and collaborate with Prof. Daniel Maspoch. During this period, Dr. Stylianou applied his expertise in synthetic chemistry to surface chemistry and the growth of porous materials on surfaces, utilizing nanolithography and inkjet printing methodologies. In 2015, he moved to École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne/Valais in Sion, Switzerland, as a team leader within the Laboratory of Molecular Simulations, and started his independent research career. He was awarded with the prestigious Ambizione Energy Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation, to investigate the potential of MOFs in photocatalysis, specifically for water splitting and hydrogen production. His group also investigated the utilization of high-throughput methodologies to accelerate the discovery of novel nanoporous materials for energy- and optical-related applications. In 2019, Dr. Stylianou joined the Department of Chemistry at Oregon State University as an Assistant Professor and established the Materials Discovery Laboratory (MaD Lab). His research team is dedicated to designing and synthesizing functional MOFs for carbon capture and utilization, hydrogen generation and storage, the capture of hazardous molecules such as ammonia and iodine, and sensing applications. Throughout his career, Dr. Stylianou supervised six graduate students, co-supervised the Ph.D. thesis of two more graduate students, advised three master students, mentored over 30 undergraduate students, and published over 80 peer-reviewed journals (h-index 38) including in Nature, Science, JACS, Angew. Chem., Chem. Sci., and many others. Currently, he mentors one postdoctoral fellow, six graduate students and nine undergraduate students. Dr. Stylianou was awarded with several research and teaching awards from the Department of Chemistry, College of Science at Oregon State University, and Foundations, highlighting his dedication to education.