Current Recipients

Academy for Effective Teaching

Robin Folkerts, elementary education program chair and assistant teaching educator, School of Teaching and Learning, College of Education

Folkerts earned an Associate of Science degree in early education from Barton Community College in 1987, a bachelor's degree in elementary education and teaching from Emporia State University in 1989, and a Master of Science in educational leadership and administration in 1997. After more than 30 years of service in public schools in various roles, including teaching, leadership and coaching in Larned, Great Bend and Derby, Folkerts joined the WSU faculty in 2021.

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Robin Folkerts is very much at home in the classroom.

Growing her teaching career and others has been a mainstay — from helping out grade schoolteachers while still in high school in Great Bend, Kansas, to being a teacher, principal and instructional coach in Kansas public schools, to now guiding WSU's first graduating class of unified elementary and special education majors.

She tried to give it up in 2021, when she retired after more than 30 years of service in three different districts and thought she'd fill her time with enjoying her new granddaughter.

"I thought I'd retire and do something different," Folkerts said. That is, until she saw that WSU was looking for adjunct faculty for its elementary education program. That opportunity turned into a full-time nontenure-track role. It was an easy fit.

"In my last 10 years of teaching, I had actually been training teachers (in Derby), and I had just loved that," Folkerts said. "It's been incredibly gratifying to teach learners of all ages … and knowing that my influence may ripple outward to future generations of students is both a meaningful responsibility and a powerful source of motivation."

Among the programs that Folkerts oversees as the elementary education program chair is WSU's Bachelor of Arts in Education and early childhood unified/elementary teacher degree. This May, WSU will graduate its first group of students with this degree, a total of 15, who will meet the demand for educators trained in both general curriculum and inclusive practices.

"My greatest strengths as a teacher align closely with my core responsibilities and teaching philosophy: building meaningful relationships, actively engaging students, providing responsive feedback, and reflecting and adjusting my teaching," Folkerts wrote in the teaching reflection essay she submitted for the Academy for Effective Teaching Award.

She also leverages the many professional connections she has built working alongside highly respected educators and administrators. In her CI446 Student Teaching Seminar, she invites a range of guest speakers to provide firsthand perspectives: education leaders, including principals, assistant superintendents and Kansas Department of Education specialists, reading and behavior specialists, school psychologists, special education coordinators and more.

The speakers "allow students to make professional connections, ask questions, gain practical insight and better understand and reflect upon the multifaceted nature of the teaching profession," Folkerts said.

She's also very aware that future teachers need to be even better equipped to adapt to changes happening in the field of education, ranging from the impact of AI to different learning environments, such as innovative learning hubs or special day schools that provide therapeutic support to further assist students with Individual Education Plans. Both of those alternatives are happening in Wichita.

One of Folkerts's students did student teaching at the Learning Lab Wichita in Union Station, in what has been likened to a "one-room schoolhouse approach." Folkerts plans to visit a similar initiative in San Diego to gain more insight into the approach.

Folkerts is a lifelong learner herself, regularly enrolling in online courses for professional development or seeking out new learning opportunities aligned with the courses she teaches.

Leadership in the Advancement of Teaching

Daniel Bergman, professor and program chair, School of Teaching and Learning, College of Education

 

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Excellence in Teaching

Fred Eilts, senior educator, Department Finance, Real Estate and Decision Sciences, W. Frank Barton School of Business

 

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Excellence in Online Teaching

Ryan Terry, assistant professor, Department of Human Resource Management, W. Frank Barton School of Business

 

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Excellence in Creative Activity

Sam Taylor, professor, Department of Creative Writing, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

 

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Excellence in Research

Moriah Beck, Talaty Endowed Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Beck earned the Bachelor of Science in forensic science, summa cum laude, from Eastern Kentucky University in 1999 and her doctoral degree in biochemistry in 2007 from Washington University in St. Louis. Before joining the WSU faculty in 2011, Beck held a four-year postdoctoral fellowship with the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Someday, protein biochemist Moriah Beck's research might help catch a killer: the one people often refer to as the Big C.

Cancer is a leading cause of death in the U.S., second only to heart disease, accounting for roughly one in every five deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Like any complex mystery, it's taking years to unlock the secrets of how cancer grows or metastasizes.

Beck, who holds an undergraduate degree in forensic science, has already dedicated nearly two decades to her study of two closely related proteins called myopalladin and palladin, and she's not planning to quit any time soon. Not only does her research have implications for metastatic cancer progression, but it also has implications for cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle that can lead to heart failure, arrhythmia and valve issues.

Beck has established herself as a well-published and externally funded member of the biochemistry research community. In 2025, she earned the highly prestigious recognition of her peers for her contributions to science and was named an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow.

Beck has authored 24 highly cited, peer-reviewed journal articles and a book chapter. Notably for her WSU Excellence in Research award, 13 of those publications have originated from her WSU laboratory. She's also pulling in major scientific research grants from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation: $4.5 million already, with $1.8 million for projects where she is the principal investigator.

As a postdoctoral fellow at UNC in Chapel Hill, Beck collaborated with scientist Carol Otey, who had discovered palladin in 2000, and that led to her niche focus on the two related proteins.

Nearly every cell in our body makes palladin, while myopalladin is a protein found in the heart and skeletal muscles that helps maintain the structure and function of a muscle fiber responsible for muscle contractions. Both proteins bind with the structural protein actin; actin creates filaments that give cells their shape and allow them to move and divide.

"If we want to prevent that interaction or enhance it or use gene editing, we need to know how (they bind). Understanding the basics of that interaction will eventually help someone take that basic knowledge and apply that to hopefully treat or diagnose heart disease or cancer metastasis," Beck said.

Beck said her commitment to enhancing the research environment through teaching and mentorship at WSU is just as important as her research accomplishments, an effort noted by her nominator Doug English, chair of WSU's chemistry and biochemistry department.

Her redesign of CHEM 664, the biochem course, to incorporate a classroom-based undergraduate research experience has been a catalyst for igniting a research passion among her students. One student, who had struggled before Beck's course, went on to become a researcher herself, earning an NIH predoctoral grant, Beck said.

She also founded and directs the First-Year Research Experience (FYRE) in STEM within the Dorothy and Bill C. Cohen Honors College at WSU, which has successfully placed 95 first-year students in WSU faculty labs.

Excellence in Community Research

Suzanne Hawley, professor, Department of Public Health Sciences, College of Health Professions

 

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Excellence in Accessibility

Raina Rutti, clinical associate professor, Department of Management, W. Frank Barton School of Business

 

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Early Career Faculty Scholar

Akmal Mirsadikov, associate professor, Department of Finance, Real Estate and Decision Sciences (FREDS), W. Frank Barton School of Business

Mirsadikov earned a Bachelor of Science in Business degree in finance from Indiana University in 2001, and a Master of Business Administration degree and doctoral degree in management information systems in 2012 and 2018, respectively, from Iowa State University. He joined the WSU faculty in 2018.

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In simple terms, Akmal Mirsadikov researches virtual lies and digital truths.

As a doctoral student, Mirsadikov became intrigued by how technology can change the way people interact when they replace face-to-face communication with digital exchanges such as email, texts and video.

He was especially drawn to the topic of deception — why people lie, how often they do it, and how those lies play out in online communications. The surge of fake news, political misinformation and online manipulation by bots around events like the 2016 elections and Brexit further underscored how important it is to understand trust and credibility in digital spaces, he said.

That combination of intellectual curiosity and real world urgency is what pulled him into his current research on how individuals, businesses and other organizations can better detect deception, investigate cybersecurity management, assess digital credibility and understand people's behavior in online interactions.

Mirsadikov's research addresses "urgent and growing societal and organizational problems," wrote FREDS chair Mehmet Barut in his nomination letter. "As organizations increasingly rely on digital communication, remote work, and online platforms, understanding how individuals perceive risk, detect deception and respond to security cues has direct implications for preventing fraud, mitigating cyber threats, and protecting sensitive information."

Mirsadikov's research can help organizations train employees to recognize things like disinformation, scams and fraud. It also explores how workplace environments influence how seriously employees take information security, giving leaders practical ideas for improving cybersecurity and reducing risks.

One unique aspect of his research is the use of eye-tracking technology — which helps reveal what people actually look at and how they process information — available in labs at his alma mater, Iowa State University.

The fact that his research has been published in MIS Quarterly and the Journal of Management Systems, the two flagship journals of the information systems discipline, along with other elite publications such as Information & Management, "signals the highest level of theoretical rigor, methodical sophistication and scholarly contribution," Barut wrote.

His publication "record places him among a small group of early-career scholars whose work shapes the intellectual direction of the field."

Since joining WSU, Mirsadikov has developed new courses and overhauled some existing courses to ensure management information systems (MIS) students acquire skills that align with current industry standards.

He consistently receives positive student evaluations, particularly in programming and database courses that students have found intimidating in previous experiences. Multiple students have credited Mirsadikov with influencing their education decisions, ranging from remaining in college to switching majors.

"I was honestly considering dropping out," wrote one student. "I very well may have if I hadn't been told about MIS & IT and your class. It's nice to actually succeed in class again."

Another said: "Your teaching style helped raise my interest in IT and provided the clarity and confidence I needed to pursue this field. … Your class was a pivotal factor in that decision."

Mirsadikov is one of the few junior faculty members in the Barton School to win both the Undergraduate Instructor of the Year (2022) and the Researcher/Writer of the Year Award (2025) before achieving tenure.

Tenure Track Faculty Risk-Taker

Christopher Proppe, assistant professor of exercise science, Department of Public Health Sciences, College of Health Professions

 

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Tenured Faculty Risk Taker

Abu Asaduzzaman, professor and associate chair, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Asaduzzaman earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering in 1993 from Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology, and a Master of Science and doctoral degree in 1997 and 2009, respectively, from Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Asaduzzaman worked in industry for several years as a software engineer and consultant before moving to higher education, first taking a position at FAU and then joining the WSU faculty in 2010.

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Risk-taking through connections matters.

Invited to join a select group comprising U.S. researchers, national laboratories and industry leaders at a competitive networking conference hosted by the Sustainable Horizons Institute (SHI) in 2019, Abu Asaduzzaman seized the opportunity to forge high-impact connections that have helped transform the research he now conducts and have raised Wichita State's profile with government and higher-education researchers seeking data-intensive computing and simulation research partners.

SHI's mission is to support and expand the U.S.'s competitiveness in scientific and technological innovation. Attending that SHI conference marked a pivot— and an uncertain risk — in the direction of Asaduzzaman's research.

Since 2021, Asaduzzaman has pursued research that combines emerging technologies, such as exascale computers, data analysis and machine learning, with applications in healthcare and other systems. He and his research group of doctoral, master's and undergraduate students have helped provide high-performance computing for projects such as an early detection imaging system and the automation of intake health data to process insurance claims for a mobile dental clinic.

Through the connections he made at the SHI conference, Asaduzzaman has gone beyond the capabilities of WSU to tap into highly sophisticated systems such as the Aurora supercomputer, one of the world's first and fastest exascale systems, at the Argonne National Laboratory, to conduct large-scale computing research projects. He's also conducted research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Asaduzzaman has collaborated with researchers at other universities, such as Md. Jashim Uddin, a research professor at Vanderbilt University's School of Medicine. Uddin's research has led to the development of a molecular imaging probe designed to help detect inflammation and early cancerous tumors.

"Importantly, these collaborations required him to step outside the traditional scope of computer engineering research and engage deeply with biomedical datasets, clinical problem definitions, and translational research challenges. This type of interdisciplinary engagement is inherently uncertain and requires intellectual risk-taking, adaptability, and sustained commitment," Uddin wrote in his letter of support for Asaduzzaman's award.

Asaduzzaman's connections and collaborations not only provide valuable opportunities for expanding innovative research at WSU, but also for student learning. Students participating in Asaduzzaman's research initiatives are gaining experience working on complex problems in new and exciting ways, including discovery-driven learning, because many of the projects involve open-ended research questions that don't have predetermined solutions.

Asaduzzaman redesigned his courses to embed open-ended, research-driven projects using real datasets and emerging tools in parallel computing, machine learning, and data analytics.

"By providing students with the opportunity to work on these projects, it helps encourage ownership and mirror professional research environments. Risk-taking creates an environment where innovation is encouraged, interdisciplinary collaboration is normal, and failure is treated as part of the discovery process." Asaduzzaman said.

Asaduzzaman's research initiatives, including high-risk projects, have led to more than 10 grants and awards, more than 15 peer-reviewed journal publications, more than 37 conference papers, and at least nine academic theses.