Dear Colleagues,
President Hemphill’s Forward-Focused leadership continues to elevate and enhance our institution in ways that manifest abundance across multiple domains. The immediate results of ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿â€™s Forward-Focused vision can be seen in our , , , and the .
The many successes stemming from President Hemphill’s transformative vision are mirrored in myriad examples of excellence across the University. For instance, we recently nominated six faculty for the SCHEV Outstanding Faculty Award (OFA), the highest honor given by the Commonwealth of Virginia professors. Listed below are excerpts from the narratives of ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿â€™s nominees for the 2027 SCHEV OFA.
- Dr. Helen Crompton is a Virginia-based scholar, educator, and public-service leader whose work helps schools, universities, and public institutions make informed, humane, and evidence-based decisions about emerging technologies. In thirteen years at Old Dominion University, she has advanced this work through teaching, research, and service that reaches the Commonwealth, the nation, and the world. She is Professor of Instructional Technology and Executive Director of ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿'s Research Institute for Digital Innovation in Learning. She has published approximately 250 works and has been cited more than 16,000 times by researchers worldwide. Dr. Crompton is part of the team holding a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Chair in Innovative Informal Digital Learning in Disadvantaged and Development Contexts.
- Dr. Matt Grau is an Assistant Professor of Physics in the College of Sciences at Old Dominion University and an outstanding candidate for the 2027 SCHEV Rising Star Award. In under five years at ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿, he has built a quantum physics laboratory from an empty room, trapped the university's first ions, created two new courses, and mentored 30 undergraduate researchers. His career record includes 21 peer-reviewed articles and 1,532 citations. He has shared in more than $2.6 million in project funding, with $869,000 attributed directly to him. His college has recognized him with awards for teaching, undergraduate research mentorship, and innovative research.
- Dr. Tina Gustin has made extraordinary contributions in healthcare education, research and service, with a focus on improving the care of underserved and disadvantaged populations through technology and innovation, for over two decades. Dr. Gustin’s career as a telehealth innovator began in 2001 when she developed an international telehealth program that connected children/families for pre-op and post-op management for pectus Nuss surgery at the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters (CHKD). She left this clinical practice in 2011 to join the Old Dominion University (ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿) Ellmer School of Nursing (ESoN) faculty…As a result of her impact, she was selected as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), a recognition achieved by less than .01% of nurses worldwide.
- Prof. Sampath Jayarathna is an internationally recognized researcher in eye tracking, accessibility, human-computer interaction, and applied machine learning, whose scholarly program spans foundational discovery, translational government partnerships, and deep community impact across the Commonwealth of Virginia. He holds an active security clearance and has embedded his research capabilities within national defense and aerospace contexts through appointments as Computer Research Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center and as Senior Faculty Fellow at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division through the Office of Naval Research Summer Faculty Program. These engagements, grounded in years of laboratory research in eye-tracking analytics and cognitive modeling, exemplify his integration of discovery, teaching, knowledge integration, and service into a unified scholarly mission.
- Oleksandr G. Kravchenko is an outstanding researcher and engineer, working at Old Dominion University as a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, whose wide-ranging impacts on students, colleagues, his discipline and community advance quality education, manufacturing, and economic development in our Commonwealth and beyond. [He] built a sustained portfolio supported by federal agencies (NASA, NSF, DOE, AFOSR) and industry sponsors, in aerospace, defense, automotive, energy, and advanced manufacturing, which lead to a model that continuously links fundamental mechanics and materials discovery to real world application through interdisciplinary collaboration, while advising 50+ graduate students at ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿, including 13 PhD, and 40 MS/ME students.
- During his sixteen years at Old Dominion University, Dr. Kevin Moberly has consistently demonstrated his commitment to excellence in his teaching, discovery, and service. Dr. Moberly has leveraged his passion for interdisciplinarity and entrepreneurship into a successful record of publication and an innovative, award-winning approach to pedagogy. He has translated this expertise into several initiatives explicitly designed to foster a culture of innovation at ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿, including the university’s Game Design, Development and Criticism program, which he established in Fall 2019 and flourishes among the university’s fastest-growing degree programs. As Dr. Moberly tells students, video games are fundamentally interdisciplinary endeavors. Equal parts art, engineering, and science, they embody many of the complexities and contradictions inherent in contemporary media production.
Alongside our SCHEV OFA nominees, we also celebrate career-track and administrative and professional (A/P) faculty members. Congratulations to our newest recipients of the University Distinguished Teacher Award—Drs. Shelly Beaver (Teaching Professor of Rehabilitation Sciences), Elaine Murphy (Teaching Associate Professor of Psychology), and Shahin Nayyeri Amiri (Teaching Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering). This award recognizes full-time teaching faculty for their teaching excellence at the undergraduate level. Dr. Megan Mize, Director of ePortfolios and Digital Initiatives, is our most recent recipient of the J. Worth Pickering Administrator of the Year Award, which recognizes sustained excellence of an A/P faculty member at the University. Staci Kohen, Assistant Director for Advisor Support and Completion Initiatives, is our most recent Monarch Professional Award honoree in recognition of her excellence among the University’s A/P faculty.
Because we are surrounded by excellence at ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿, I thought it imperative to ensure more frequent recognition and celebration of this reality. Under Vice Provost Janice Hawkins’ leadership, the Division of Academic Affairs has created the Monarch Distinguished Service Medallion to honor exceptional service in student success, academic excellence, institutional effectiveness, and community engagement. Honorees receive bronze, silver, and gold medals in accordance with the number of times they have been recognized for excellence. The medallions will be awarded throughout the academic year. Please visit the recognition program’s website and consider nominating someone for this recognition of their extraordinary impact on our community.
Excellence is one of our core values at Old Dominion University. I am grateful for all you do to promote excellence for our students, colleagues, and community.