Indiana University has announced the recipients of the University Senate Awards and the new faculty emeriti for 2026.
Since 1969, the University Senate has honored faculty and staff members who make significant contributions to the university by presenting them with Distinguished Awards in the areas of creative arts, research, faculty service, and staff service. Recipients of the awards are recognized annually during May Commencement.
University Senate Awards Recipients for 2026
Timothy A. Paul
2026 Distinguished Faculty Award for Creative Arts
Timothy A. Paul
Tim Paul serves as director of bands at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and previously held the position of associate director of bands at the University of Oregon. He earned the doctor of musical arts in wind band conducting and literature from the University of Colorado, the master of music in music education from Florida State University, and completed post-baccalaureate study at the North Carolina School of the Arts.
Under Paul’s leadership, ensembles have performed at major conferences including the College Band Directors National Association Eastern Division Conference, the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic, the Texas Bandmasters Association Convention, and state and regional NAfME and Music Educators Association conferences. His work has been recognized with honors such as the Phi Beta Mu Florida Chapter Distinguished Director Award, the John Philip Sousa Foundation’s Sudler Flag of Honor, and the national UMI/ASBDA Distinguished Young Band Director Award.
An active guest conductor, clinician, and speaker, Paul is committed to advancing new music through commissioning projects with leading composers, including Libby Larsen, Frank Ticheli, David Maslanka, and others. His scholarly work includes publications in the Journal of Band Research and coauthorship of Winds and Hymns: A Resource Guide to Hymns, Chorales, and Spirituals in Select Wind Band Literature.
In 2014, he founded the International Fellowship of Conductors, Composers, and Collaborators (IFC3), which promotes collaboration through performances, workshops, and recordings. IFC3 has released five albums to date.
Paul has been an active member of CBDNA for over 20 years, including service as president of the Northwest Division, and maintains professional affiliations with national and international music organizations.
Andrea Palmiotto
2026 Distinguished Faculty Award for Research
Andrea Palmiotto
Andrea Palmiotto is an associate professor of anthropology and serves as the lead for the Forensic Science program in the Kopchick College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Trained in zooarchaeology and certified in forensic anthropology by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, Palmiotto balances her research interests and student mentoring between zooarchaeology and forensic anthropology.
In 2020, she led efforts to develop a partnership between IUP and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency that has resulted in international field schools since 2021, where students train in forensic archaeology methodologies while contributing to DPAA’s humanitarian mission of recovering and identifying unaccounted-for service members from past US conflicts.
In 2024, she led efforts to establish IUP’s decomposition research station, a dedicated outdoor half-acre space where students gain firsthand observation and research experience in forensic taphonomy and related topics. Additionally, she has received numerous grants and contracts, including a prestigious Wenner-Gren award, to support her forensic anthropology and zooarchaeology research.
Palmiotto’s forensic anthropology interests include past conflict casualty resolution, commingled human remains, and human decision-making. Her zooarchaeology research interests include ancient bone tool technologies, mobility and trade, and collaboration with descendant groups. Her diverse interests result in unique professional collaboration, research, service, and student mentorship opportunities. Since arriving at IUP in 2018, she has secured over $1 million to support her research and frequently involves students and collaborators in these projects. This has resulted in nine peer-reviewed articles, two submitted book chapters, one open educational resource, 13 published abstracts, nine conference presentations, and more than 15 technical reports.
Palmiotto is a member of the Register of Professional Archaeologists, the Council of South Carolina Professional Archaeologists, and the Southeastern Archaeology Conference, as well as a fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of South Carolina, and she holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Florida.
Gian S. Pagnucci
2026 Distinguished Faculty Award for Service
Gian S. Pagnucci
Gian S. Pagnucci is a distinguished university professor and chair of the Department of Language, Literature, and Writing Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has served as chair for 16 years and is cochair of IUP’s Council of Chairs. Pagnucci teaches in the LLW Department’s Graduate Studies in Composition and Applied Linguistics doctoral program.
Pagnucci loves collaborating with others and tries to help wherever he can. He currently serves on IUP’s Academic Affairs Committee, the Academic Computing Policy and Advisory Committee, the College of Arts, Humanities, Media, and Public Affairs Leadership Council, the University Budget Council, and the APSCUF Executive and Representative councils. He was cochair of the Academic Restructuring Implementation Advisory Committee and served on IUP’s Middle States Commission on Higher Education Accreditation Steering Committee. Pagnucci also serves as a faculty mentor for IUP’s Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program for International Teachers.
One big contribution Pagnucci has made to student success at IUP is serving on many dissertation committees. At last count, he had directed 64 dissertations and had been a reader for 158 dissertations. He teaches doctoral English courses and undergraduate writing courses. Pagnucci also recently taught a course on the literature of superheroes.
Professionally, Pagnucci has been serving as president of the Pennsylvania College English Association for the past eight years. He also served as vice president of the Indiana Free Library Board of Directors for eight years.
Pagnucci has an extensive list of scholarly publications, including the books Enter the Superheroes: American Values, Culture, and the Canon of Superhero Literature and Living the Narrative Life: Stories as a Tool for Meaning Making. He has also written about success strategies for academic leaders in The Department Chair. He has been a keynote and invited speaker for many conferences and has delivered over 150 professional presentations. Internationally, he has presented in Canada, Ireland, Italy, and Taiwan. Pagnucci’s next coedited book will be The Life of a Superhero: Heroic Journeys and Super Takeaways for Real People from McFarland Publishing.
Amanda Poole
2026 Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching
Amanda Poole
Amanda Poole is a professor of anthropology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she has taught since 2009. A cultural, environmental, and applied anthropologist, she teaches courses in cultural anthropology, applied anthropology, environmental anthropology, Africa, anthropology of religion, and sociocultural theory. Her teaching is grounded in a commitment to helping students connect anthropological ideas to real-world issues and to develop the skills to apply anthropology beyond the classroom.
Poole first discovered her love of teaching as a Peace Corps volunteer in Eritrea. That experience, and the disruption caused by war and displacement, shaped her long-term scholarly and teaching interests in forced migration, refugee studies, political ecology, and the anthropology of the state. She earned her PhD in anthropology from the University of Washington before joining the IUP faculty.
At IUP, Poole is known for high-impact, community-engaged teaching that brings students into direct contact with ethnographic methods, applied research, and public-facing work. She has helped lead the anthropology internship program and has mentored students in collaborative research on sustainability, community development, and regional challenges in Appalachia through projects such as the Appalachian Collegiate Research Initiative. In 2023, she served as a Fulbright Specialist in Madagascar, where she conducted workshops on high-impact teaching practices and on curriculum and program development in applied and environmental anthropology.
Poole is also the coauthor, with Jennifer Riggan, of Hosting States and Unsettled Guests: Eritrean Refugees in a Time of Migration Deterrence (Indiana University Press, 2024), and she brings her research into the classroom in ways that deepen students’ understanding of global inequality, resilience, and human agency.
Michelle Fryling
2026 Distinguished Staff Award for Service
Michelle Fryling
A member of the IUP community since October 1992, executive director of Media Relations and Communications Michelle Fryling has been responsible for literally thousands of press releases, news posts, and internal communications over the past 33 years.
She is responsible for responding to all media inquiries in a timely fashion, which requires her to be available nights and weekends. She works collaboratively with faculty and staff to publicize achievements and successes and to promote programs and events.
Her efforts have resulted in media coverage in hundreds of publications and broadcast stations all over the world; her work with the proposed college of osteopathic medicine has resulted in more than 650 print and electronic articles since December 2022. She works closely with the Office of Public Safety and University Police for emergency communications and has served for 11 years as the public information officer for the Indiana Area Collaborative Team, which focuses on proactive measures to mitigate disruptive and unsafe behaviors in the community.
As a member of the Student Affairs senior leadership team, it is her goal to be a trusted advisor and consultant to all members of the university community, thinking through potential challenges or negative publicity situations and providing solutions.
A native of Indiana, Fryling has provided volunteer leadership with many nonprofit organizations, including the United Way (her 2013 campaign raised more than $737,000), the Salvation Army, Humane Society, Alice Paul House, Downtown Indiana, the Indiana County Bicentennial Committee, and Quota International. She was elected to the international board of directors, which gave her the opportunity to travel throughout the United States, Canada, and Australia.
As a 2012 recipient of the ATHENA Leadership Award for Indiana County, she is an active member of the Indiana County ATHENA Recipients group, committed to developing programs and events that mentor young men and women through the international ATHENA Leadership program. She also is a recipient of the Indiana County Female Civic Leader Award.
Fryling is a graduate of Allegheny College in Meadville. She and her husband, Calvin, are the parents of two grown children—including a 2023 IUP graduate—and have two grandchildren.
Syed R. Ali-Zaidi Award for Academic Excellence
IUP Nominee: Marisol Gonzalez Flores, College of Arts, Humanities, Media, and Public Affairs, and Kopchick College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
Marisol Gonzalez Flores
The Ali-Zaidi Award is funded through the generous donations of Syed R. Ali-Zaidi in honor of his father. Each of the 14 universities in Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education submits one nominee, an undergraduate or graduate student, to the State System chancellor. The chancellor then chooses the recipient based on outstanding academic performance, recognition of scholarship by members of the university faculty, participation in extracurricular activities, and the quality of the nominee’s essay.
Gonzalez Flores is a double major in criminology and geology.
Distinguished University Professor
Alex Heckert
Professor
School Psychology, Special Education, and Sociology
Alex Heckert
Alex Heckert is IUP’s 2025–26 Distinguished University Professor. The Distinguished University Professor is a faculty member who exemplifies excellence in all areas of teaching, research, scholarly activities, and service. This recognition is a title that the recipient holds for life.
Heckert joined the IUP community in 1992 as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and was promoted to full professor in 2000. He began work as a research fellow at IUP’s Mid-Atlantic Research and Training Institute in 1998; in 2021, he was named director of the institute (now Mid-Atlantic Research and Training Institute for Community and Behavioral Health), a position he continues to hold.
He served as chair of the Department of Sociology for 18 years before beginning his current work in 2020 as coordinator of IUP’s Administration and Leadership Studies PhD program.
He is the co-author of 60 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, as well as over a dozen book chapters and encyclopedia articles on topics in the field of sociology, including autism, opioid addiction, domestic violence, and women and justice. He has been an invited presenter for state, national, and international conferences and professional meetings.
His research with IUP sociology professor emeritus Ed Gondolf in the area of family violence improved the prediction of nonphysical abuse and physical re-assault among batterer program participants and introduced multiple methodological and statistical innovations to the field. In a series of journal articles, he and his sister, Druann Heckert, Department of Sociology, Fayetteville State University, introduced an integrated typology of deviance that has expanded traditional conceptualizations and definitions of deviance.
Previous funded research has included predicting levels of abuse and re-assault among batterers, evaluating an inclusion program for children with disabilities in day care settings, and a National Science Foundation instrumentation grant, among other projects.
Heckert is the current chair of 12 dissertation projects and a reader for 15 projects. In addition, he has chaired 26 successfully completed dissertations for the Administration and Leadership Studies PhD program and served as a reader on over 60 more. He has advised eight master’s theses and has been a reader for more than 20 other students completing their master’s degrees.
His IUP service work includes leadership and membership of many department committees, including the department self-study and program review committees. He served on the University Budget Advisory Committee for 12 years and was on the executive steering committee to develop the public health program. He was also a member of the board for the Labyrinth Center, a program for IUP students who identify as being on the autism spectrum.
He completed his master’s degree and PhD in sociology at the University of Iowa and his undergraduate degree in sociology and political science at Frostburg State University.
Faculty Achievements in Scholarship and New Faculty Emeriti
The emeritus or emerita title is given to qualified retired faculty and academic administrators who have been recommended through a department-based process to the Academic Committee of the University Senate. The recommendation of the Academic Committee is reviewed by the University Senate as a body and then by the IUP Council of Trustees.
College of Arts, Humanities, Media, and Public Affairs
- John Branscum, Language, Literature, and Writing
- Zach Collins, Music, Theatre, and Dance
- Sean Derry, Art and Design
- Dana Driscoll, Language, Literature, and Writing
- Daniel Lee, Criminology and Criminal Justice
- Joseph Mannard, History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religious Studies
- Sharon Massey, Art and Design
- Alida Merlo, Criminology and Criminal Justice
- Sadie Miller, Criminology and Criminal Justice
- Gloria Park, Language, Literature, and Writing
- Shannon Phaneuf, Criminology and Criminal Justice
- Mike Sell, Language, Literature, and Writing
- Bryna Siegel Finer, Language, Literature, and Writing
- Dawn Smith-Sherwood, Language, Literature, and Writing
- Todd Thompson, Language, Literature, and Writing
- Jeremy Waltman, Communications Media
- Xi Wang, History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religious Studies
- Daniel Weinstein, Language, Literature, and Writing
- Michael T. Williamson, Language, Literature, and Writing
- Henry Wong Doe, Music, Theatre, and Dance
New Faculty Emeriti
- Susan Comfort, Language, Literature, and Writing
- Alison Downie, History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religious Studies
- Brian Jones, Music, Theatre, and Dance
- Irene Kabala, Art and Design
- Richard Kemp, Music, Theatre, and Dance
- Erick Lauber, Communications Media
- James Lenze, Communications Media
- Soo Lu, History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religious Studies
- John Marsden, Language, Literature, and Writing
- Mark Piwinsky, Communications Media
- Theresa Wacker, Music, Theatre, and Dance
- Tamara Whited, History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religious Studies
Eberly College of Business
- Hussam Al-Shammari, Management
- Madan Batra, Marketing
- Prashanth Bharadwaj, Management
- Framarz Byramjee, Marketing
- James Jozefowicz, Finance and Economics
- Veronica Paz, Accounting and Information Systems
- Varinder Sharma, Marketing
- Yaya Sissoko, Finance and Economics
- Frederick Slack, Management
- Ramesh Soni, Management
- Yasong Wang, Hospitality and Employment Relations
- David Yerger, Finance and Economics
- New Faculty Emeriti
- LeAnn Wilkie, Management
College of Education and Human Services
- Alex Heckert, School Psychology, Special Education, and Sociology
- Courtney Leone, School Psychology, Special Education, and Sociology
- Farheen Mahmood, Professional Studies in Education
- Jacqueline McGinty, Professional Studies in Education
- Matthew Nice, Counseling and Human Development
- Christian Vaccaro, School Psychology, Special Education, and Sociology
College of Health Sciences
- Janis Barner, Nursing
- Kristy Chunta, Nursing
- Taylor Edwards, Nursing
- Lei Hao, Nursing
- Meigan Robb, Nursing
- Rebecca Smith, Nursing
John J. and Char Kopchick College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
- Abigail Adams, Anthropology, Geospatial and Earth Sciences
- William Chadwick, Anthropology, Geospatial and Earth Sciences
- Soundararajan Ezekiel, Mathematical and Computer Sciences
- Waleed Farag, Mathematical and Computer Sciences
- Ben Ford, Anthropology, Geospatial and Earth Sciences
- Lara Homsey-Messer, Anthropology, Geospatial and Earth Sciences
- Avijita Jain, Madia Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Physics
- Jeffery Larkin, Biology
- John Lattanzio, Mathematical and Computer Sciences
- Valerie Long, Mathematical and Computer Sciences
- Sanda Andrada Maicaneanu, Madia Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Physics
- Luz Stella Marin Ramirez, Safety Sciences and Environmental Engineering
- Wanda Minnick, Safety Sciences and Environmental Engineering
- Andrea Palmiotto, Anthropology, Geospatial and Earth Sciences
- Amanda Poole, Anthropology, Geospatial and Earth Sciences
- Josiah Townsend, Biology
- Jonathan Warnock, Anthropology, Geospatial and Earth Sciences
- Andrew Zhou, Madia Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Physics
- Majed Zreiqat, Safety Sciences and Environmental Engineering
New Faculty Emeriti
- Brian Okey, Anthropology, Geospatial, and Earth Sciences
- Jan Wachter, Safety Sciences, and Environmental Engineering
University College
Mimi Benjamin, Student Affairs, Student Success, and Disability Access
IUP Libraries
New Faculty Emriti
- Theresa McDevitt
IUP Council of Trustees
- Samuel Smith, chair
- Laurie Kuzneski ’93, vice chair
- Anne White, treasurer
- Joyce Fairman ’76, M’84, secretary
- Jennifer Baker ’05
- Tim Cejka ’73
- Susan Delaney ’64
- Jackson White, student trustee
- Mark Holman ’79
- David Osikowicz
- Nathan Spade ’01
Senate Awards Committee
- Timothy A. Paul, committee chair
- William Farrell
- Joshua Castle
- Amy Cook