Past Recipients of Faculty Researcher of the Year Award

Karen Beard

S.J. & Jessie E. Quinney College of Natural Resources | Wildland Resources

Dr. Karen Beard is a Professor in the Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center. She has been at USU for 22 years, where her research focuses on species interactions and subsequent impacts on ecosystem processes, especially involving non-native species and climate change. She currently has research in Alaska, Hawaii, Brazil, and Utah. She has work with a wide range of taxa from amphibians to birds to plants to microbes, and is particularly known for her research on the invasive coqui frog in Hawaii. She is also an expert in climate change effects particularly in western Alaska, focused on changes to herbivory, flooding and warming effects. The ultimate goal of her research is to improve decisions about how to manage habitats and species in the face of global change. She has over 11,800 citations, an h-index of 43, and i10-index of 94. She has been awarded over $3 million in external funding from NSF over the past 3 years on 3 different projects. She receives over 1200 citations/year. She has published on average 7 manuscripts/year over the past 10 years. Dr. Beard involves students, from undergraduates to post-graduates, in every aspect of her research.

Peter Alder

S.J. & Jessie E. Quinney College of Natural Resources | Wildland Resources Department

Dr. Peter Adler is an ecologist who conducts basic research on patterns of biodiversity and the processes that shape them and applied research on the ecological impacts of climate change. After growing up in Berkeley, CA, he attended Harvard College and then earned his PhD at Colorado State University. He has been a faculty member in the Quinney College of Natural Resources (QCNR) since 2006. Dr. Adler has published over 140 peer-reviewed papers which have been cited almost 20,000 times, and he has been designated a Clarivate Highly Cited Scholar (top 0.1% of world’s researchers) in the field of Ecology and Evolution each year since 2017. Adler is a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America, a Fulbright Fellow, and a winner of the QCNR Researcher and Teacher of the Year awards. Much of his research involves integration of mathematical and statistical models with long-term data sets collected at a variety of spatial scales, from maps of individual plants in sagebrush steppe ecosystems to satellite-derived datasets spanning North America. His best days at work involve designing experiments and analyzing data with his graduate students and post-docs.

Susannah S. French

College of Science | Department of Biology

Susannah French is a professor and associate department head in the Department of Biology. Dr. French has built a nationally and internationally lauded research program in vertebrate physiological ecology, where she has published over 90 journal articles and 2 book chapters during her career. 

Since 2017, she has garnered an NSF RAPID grant, NSF Integrative Organismal Systems grant, two Department of Defense/U.S. Fish and Wildlife grants, and numerous foundational, supplemental, and internal seed grants. She has received over 2.5 million dollars in external and internal funding to support her research enterprises and student training. 

Regan Zane

College of Engineering | Electrical and Computer Engineering

Dr. Regan Zane is the Director of the Center for Advancing Sustainability through Powered Infrastructure for Roadway Electrification (ASPIRE), an NSF sponsored engineering research center involving 9 universities, 55 faculty, 4 national labs, and more than 50 industry and innovation partners. He holds the David G. and Diann L. Sant Endowed Professor position at Utah State University in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where he founded the USU Power Electronics Lab (UPEL), the Electric Vehicle and Roadway (EVR) research facility and test track, and the Battery Limits andSurvivability Test (BLAST) lab. Dr. Zane has co-authored one book and approximately 200 peer-reviewed articles, has 26 issued patents, has received international and institutional recognition in research, teaching and innovation, and has raised more than $50 million in research funding. His research programs cover key aspects of electrified transportation charging systems and infrastructure, from battery, vehicle, and charging systems to grid integration, smart charge management, demand response and distributed energy resources. His programs maintain a strong emphasis on students and on collaboration with academic, government and industry partners to develop and transition innovative technologies into the marketplace.

Zhi-Qiang Wang

College of Science | Mathematics and Statistics

A professor in USU’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Zhi-Qiang’s research ranges from abstract theory in nonlinear functional analysis to applied analysis and computational mathematics, providing new tools and techniques for tackling challenge questions in partial differential equations from classical and emerging fields of applied science.

He has published 190 papers and was named to the Highly Cited Researcher List for 2018 and 2019 by the Clarivate Analytics (Web of Science Group). Zhi-Qiang was elected a Fellow of American Mathematical Society in 2015. Zhi-Qiang’s research has been supported by several National Science Foundation programs, including Analysis, Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, and International, as well as number of agencies around globe, including NATO-CRG, NATO-CLG, Simons, NSF of China, DAAD and DFG of Germany.

A member of USU’s faculty science 1991, this is the second time Zhi-Qiang has earned the honor of Faculty Researcher of the Year for the College of Science.

Idalis Villanueva

College of Engineering | Engineering Education

Dr. Idalis Villanueva has been a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at Utah State University (USU) for the past 5 ½years. During her time at USU, she has gained nationwide and international recognition in her research by becoming the first female Latinx faculty to get a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award under the Broadening Participation in Engineering (BPE) directorate. She has accumulated an impressive amount of research funding as a junior faculty (~$2.4 M) and continues to demonstrate a steady trajectory of research. Dr. Villanueva has garnered over 27 honors and awards, 13 journal publications (many in high-impact and prestigious journals), 1 book chapter and another one under review, 20 published conference proceedings, 24 national and international conference presentations, 6 invited talks, and 39 mentored undergraduates and graduate students. She is a strong advocate for inclusion, equity, and access to undergraduates and graduate students alike. Her efforts has been recognized through numerous awards, e.g.Undergraduate Research mentor of the Year in 2017, Graduate Mentor of the Year in 2018, the College of Engineering Researcher of the Year in 2019, and 2018 Best Diversity Paper Award in Engineering Ethics Division of the American Society of Engineering Education.

Patrick Belmont

S.J. & Jessie E. Quinney College of Natural Resources | Watershed Sciences

Patrick Belmont is an Associate Professor of Hydrology and Geomorphology in the Watershed Sciences Department. His research focuses on how water and sediment move through watersheds. He is driven to understand how landscape systems have evolved over geologic time and evaluate how that landscape context influences modern processes and dynamics. This understanding is useful for predicting how human activities affect terrestrial and riverine processes. The three main thrusts of his research are a) mathematical modeling of hydrology, erosion and river channel change, b) development of water and sediment budgets, and c) spatial analysis with a focus on high-resolution topography data. Dr. Belmont served as the Director for Science Integration for the $4.3M NSF project Resilience Under Accelerated Change, serves as Co-PI for the $2.7M NSF Climate Adaptation Sciences program at USU, and has been identified as a national leader in education, serving on the National Association of Geoscience Teachers Traveling Workshop team. Dr. Belmont leads a nationally renowned research group, working most prominently in Utah, Idaho, California, and Minnesota and a has strong track record of translating his science into actionable management and policy guidance, working directly with state and county-level agencies, industry and non-profit environmental groups, and state legislators.

Silvana Martini

College of Agriculture & Applied Sciences | Nutrition, Dietetics and Food Sciences

Silvana Martini, Director of the Graduate Program for the department of Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Science, has been at Utah State University since 2005. She has published 29 peer-reviewed papers in leading scientific journals since 2013 and has participated as author and co-author in more than 40 local, regional, and international scientific conferences. She is also the Senior Associate Editor for the Journal of American Oil Chemists’ Society, which is the leading peer-reviewed journal focusing on lipids, and was recently recognized by the American Chemical Society (Agricultural and Food Chemistry Division) with the prestigious Young Scientist Award. Her research is related to the physiochemical and sensorial characterization of food materials. She studies how the quality of food materials is affected by their nano-, micro-, and macroscopic characteristics.

Michael Twohig

Emma Eccles Jones College of Education & Human Services | Psychology

Michael is in his 9th year at USU and has graduated four Ph.D. students with two more leaving for internship this year. He is currently the president of the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science-an international organization with 8,000 members-and an associate editor for their flagship journal: Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science.

His research primarily focuses on the use of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) across a variety of clinical presentations. He has published over 100 scholarly works including two books: An ACT-Enhanced Behavior Therapy approach to the Treatment of Trichotillomania (with Woods) and ACT Verbatim for Depression and Anxiety (with Hayes).

He has been continuously funded since joining USU with funding through multiple sources including the National Institute of Mental Health. Finally, he has been successfully training other professionals around the world in the use of ACT for over 10 years.

T. Scott Findley

Jon M. Huntsman School of Business | Economics & Finance

Scott’s research program has concentrated on the role of behavioral pathologies (i.e., self- control failure, myopia, impulsivity, misperceptions, overconfidence) on economic outcomes over the life cycle. He has also spent considerable effort in examining the role that social security might play in potentially remedying such behavioral pathologies. His peer-reviewed research has been published in several high-quality scientific outlets, including Economics Letters, the Journal of Economic Psychology, International Tax and Public Finance, and the European Journal of Political Economy. In recognition for his research efforts to date, Scott was honored with the appointment as a Research Fellow of Netspar (The Network for Pensions, Aging and Retirement) which is sponsored by the government of The Netherlands in tandem with several private pension providers and universities across Europe.

Scott was also honored with the appointment as a Research Affiliate (Junior Fellow) of CESifo (joint partnership between the Center for Economic Studies and the Ifo Institute, headquartered in Munich, Germany). CESifo is sponsored by the federal government of Germany, the state government of Bavaria, and the University of Munich. In addition, in 2008 Scott was awarded The Young Economists Award in Maastricht, Netherlands by the International Institute of Public Finance for some of his research (joint with coauthor, Frank Caliendo) on optimal public pension design. This award was bestowed for this research that stands out for scientific quality, creativity, and relevance, and the award was given to only two other pairs of coauthors representing Harvard University, the University of Cologne, the University of Munich, and the Paris School of Economics.