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Ohio State announces first cohort of Provost's Early Career Scholars
New program recognizes highest caliber early-career faculty
The Ohio State University has selected its inaugural cohort for the Provost's Early Career Scholars Program, a new initiative designed to attract and develop the highest caliber early-career faculty.
"Through the Provost's Early Career Scholars Program, we aim to recruit and recognize extraordinary faculty as they are beginning their careers at Ohio State," said Melissa L. Gilliam, executive vice president and provost. "This program is part of our growing work to support faculty at all stages of their professional lifecycle and enable them to do their best work with an entrepreneurial, innovative and creative spirit."
As part of the program, scholars will hold a Provost's Early Career Professorship for the first five years of their Ohio State appointment, or until their promotion to associate professor with tenure. Scholars will also receive annual funding from the Office of Academic Affairs to be used for research, startup costs and external engagement. The cohort will participate in activities focused on research and scholarship, participate in social programming and interact with university leaders.
"Our colleagues in this inaugural cohort are emerging as impactful scholars and transformative educators and mentors at Ohio State," said Patrick Louchouarn, senior vice provost for faculty. "Programs like this will help us attract an inclusive and innovative group of faculty, support them throughout all their career stages, and build on our thriving community of scholars."
The program is open to tenure-track, early-career candidates from all disciplines who have exceptional promise in their respective fields. Given the excellence and potential of early-career faculty at Ohio State, the inaugural cohort includes both incoming and current assistant professors. Looking to next year and beyond, this program will be a powerful effort that will enable Ohio State to recruit top early-career candidates across disciplines.
These eight Early Career Scholars were nominated by their college dean, and a faculty committee evaluated nominations and made recommendations to the Office of Academic Affairs.
The 2022-2023 Provost's Early Career Scholars are:
Chinyere Agbai
Assistant Professor (beginning 2023)
Department of Sociology, College of Arts and Sciences
Agbai's research seeks to uncover the roots of the racial wealth gap in homeownership and explore their consequences for inequality in wealth and health. More broadly, her work is concerned with the linkages among urban inequality, racial wealth gaps, and social determinants of health, public policy and structural racism.
Christina Dyar
Dyar's research aims to understand and reduce health disparities affecting sexual and gender minority populations, with a focus on bisexual individuals, sexual minority women, and nonbinary individuals. She is particularly interested in understanding mechanisms through which stigma-related stressors impact mental health and substance use.
Hun Lee
Department of Management and Human Resources, Fisher College of Business
Lee's research examines leadership effectiveness and diversity management. His research has been published in leading academic journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Management and Human Resource Management.
Horacio Lopez-Nicora
Department of Plant Pathology, College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences
Lopez-Nicora is a plant pathologist, nematologist and applied statistician committed to improving and better protecting soybean health. His research is driven by the intertwined goals of ensuring food stability and helping growers manage diseases that affect yield.
Ashleigh LoVette
Division of Health Behavior and Health Promotion, College of Public Health
A public health scholar, LoVette's research aims to promote the health and well-being of young people using community- and strength-based approaches incorporating the concept of resilience. Her current work examines how resilience, trauma, health behaviors and social contexts influence sexual and mental health outcomes among girls and young women of color, particularly those affected by HIV.
Parvati Singh
Division of Epidemiology, College of Public Health
Singh studies how sudden changes in the socioeconomic and health policy environment affect populations' mental health and health service use. Much of her work focuses on vulnerable groups such as low-income populations, racial minorities, children and people with mental disorders.
Brian Skinner
Department of Physics, College of Arts and Sciences
Skinner's research program focuses on new quantum materials and finding ways that these materials can do things traditional materials cannot. He also applies concepts from solid state and material physics to different settings, ranging from quantum information to the dynamics of human groups.
Lydia Walker
Assistant Professor and Seth Andre Myers Professor in Global Military
Department of History, College of Arts and Sciences
Walker is a historian of 20th century global decolonization. Her work explores the international history of South Asia, Southern Africa, military intervention and insurgent resistance.