Faculty Excellence Awards

Tenured Faculty Award

Amanda Kearney, Department of Anthropology

Amanda Kearney is an Australian socio-cultural anthropologist whose research combines environmental anthropology, political anthropology, critical heritage and ocean studies. She came to SDSU in 2023 to join the Department of Anthropology as a Full Professor, bringing an internationally recognized research profile built over three decades of collaborative work with Indigenous Australian communities and interdisciplinary partners. Her scholarship is distinguished by sustained co-designed research with Indigenous knowledge holders and earth scientists, through which she has developed a praxis of plural science: a framework for bringing knowledges into rigorous dialogue around marine conservation, ocean crises, and environmental justice.

A signature of Kearney’s research career is her leadership in multimodal, community-governed research translation. As Co-Director and Board Member of the Wunungu Awara Indigenous Animation program, Kearney works with Indigenous knowledge holders and animators to document language and ancestral knowledges of lands and waters through collaboratively produced digital animations (with philanthropic investment). This work reflects her commitment to concrete and defensible impact platforms.

Kearney is the author/editor of seven books, Editor-in-Chief of Anthropological Forum, and the author of 100+ publications in leading journals. Her recent publications advance rigorous theorization of epistemic violence and coloniality alongside detailed, place-based analyses of Sea Country governance, and joint-managed national parks, reshaping debates on conservation ethics in Indigenous territories. Her 2022 monograph "Keeping Company: An Anthropology of Being-in-Relation" and Indigenous co-authored 2023 book "Indigenous Law and the Politics of Kincentricity and Orality" have become key references for scholars working in anthropology, socio-legal studies, geography and environmental humanities.

Tenure-Track Faculty Award

Zamira Abman, Department of Comparative International Studies

Zamira Abman is a historian of Soviet Central Asia, the Soviet Union, and modern Russia whose work integrates gender, political, and social history with the study of marginalized identities in borderland contexts. She is an Assistant Professor of History and Comparative International Studies (CINTS) at San Diego State University, where she also serves as Program Director and Undergraduate Advisor. Her scholarship combines archival research with oral history to examine identity, memory, and state power in Central Asia.

A central focus of Abman’s research is her engagement with communities shaped by coercion, concealment, and adaptation, particularly women. Her first book, “Coerced Liberation: Muslim Women in Soviet Tajikistan” (University of Toronto Press, 2024), analyzes the contradictory effects of Soviet modernization campaigns on Muslim women’s lives. She has also published on the Chala—descendants of forcibly converted Persianate Jews—highlighting the gendered dimensions of crypto-Jewish Muslim identity. Her book project, “Bridging Worlds: The History of the Chala,” draws on oral histories and archival sources to explore memory, genealogy, Soviet nationality policy, and intergenerational trauma.

Her recent ACLS-supported research examines resource conflict and “water wars” in northern Tajikistan, situating local disputes within broader environmental and political dynamics. She is also developing a project on Muslim women in post-Soviet Tajikistan.

At SDSU, Abman teaches courses on Soviet and Russian history, world history, and gender in Muslim societies. She holds a Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara, an M.A. from Notre Dame, and a B.A. from the American University of Central Asia.

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2024-2025

• Tenured Faculty Award - Pierre Asselin, Department of History
• Tenure-Track Faculty Award - Kristal Bivona, Department of Classics and Humanities

2023-2024

• Tenured Faculty Award - Erin P. Riley, Department of Anthropology
• Tenure-Track Faculty Award - Naseh Nasdrollahi Shahri, Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages and Jess Whatcott, Department of Women’s Studies

2022-2023

• Tenured Faculty Award - Roy Whitaker, Department for the Study of Religion
• Tenure-Track Faculty Award - Yuki Arita, Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages

2021-2022

• Tenured Faculty Award - Matthew Lauer, Department of Anthropology and Erika Robb Larkins, Department of Anthropology
• Tenure-Track Faculty Award - Aaron Dinkin, Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages

2020-2021

• Tenured Faculty Award - David Cline, Department of History
• Tenure-Track Faculty Award - Rebecca Bartel, Department for the Study of Religion

2019-2020

• Tenured Faculty Award - Ming Tsou, Department of Geography
• Tenure-Track Faculty Award -  Cecilia Benaglia, Department of European Studies

2018-2019

• Tenured Faculty Award - Ahmet Kuru, Department of Political Science
• Tenure-Track Faculty Award - Atsushi Nara, Department of Geography

2017-2018

• Tenured Faculty Award - Li An, Geography
• Tenure-Track Faculty Award - Hilary McMillan, Geography

2016-2017

• Tenured Faculty Award - Esther Rothblum, Women’s Studies and LGBT Studies

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Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Award

Isaac Ullah, Department of Anthropology

Isaac I. T. Ullah earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Arizona State University in 2013 and is Professor of Anthropology at San Diego State University. His teaching helps students understand archaeology as a disciplined way of building knowledge from evidence, evaluating uncertainty, and acting ethically in the present. Across General Education courses, advanced undergraduate and graduate instruction, internships, and mentored research, Ullah emphasizes scaffolded learning, transparent workflows, spatial reasoning, public communication, and applied projects that move students from curiosity to competence.

His recent redesign of ANTH 103, Introduction to Archaeology, reframed the course around evidence literacy, pseudoscientific claims about the past, ethical engagement with descendant communities, and the public communication of archaeological knowledge. Beyond the classroom, Ullah mentors students in digital and computational archaeology, including AI-assisted site detection, GIS and landscape modeling, 3D documentation, and digital heritage research. He has chaired ten M.A. students, supervised numerous internships and independent studies, and mentored student presentations, including two Provost’s Award-winning S3 posters. His community-engaged teaching, developed through sustained collaboration with the La Mesa History Center, includes local heritage survey, digitization, community archiving, and public digital exhibits. Through this work, Ullah connects archaeological training to research practice, community benefit, and the ethical interpretation of the past.

Non-Tenure Track Faculty Award

Justin Bissell, Department of Geography

Justin P. Bissell is a geographer, GIS specialist, and educator whose work integrates geospatial modeling, watershed science, geomorphology, and applications of artificial intelligence at the university level. He currently teaches full-time in Geography and Geology at San Diego State University, where his courses include physical geography, geomorphology, hydrology, global environmental change, water and the environment, and water resources. He earned his Ph.D. in Geography through the San Diego State University/University of California, Santa Barbara Joint Doctoral Program in 2025, following an M.S. in Natural Resources from Cal Poly Humboldt and bachelor’s degrees in Geography and Psychology from the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. 

Bissell’s research focuses on geostatistical and geospatial analysis of stream network contraction, expansion, and disconnection under drought conditions, with particular attention to how in-stream restoration affects aquatic habitat for anadromous fish, including coho salmon, Chinook salmon, and steelhead. Before entering academia full-time, he spent more than a decade as GIS Manager and Network Administrator for Pacific Watershed Associates, producing geospatial models and analyses, maps, fieldwork tools, and deliverables for hundreds of environmental assessment, watershed restoration, salmonid habitat, erosion control, and resource management projects.

His teaching and research interests include GIS, GeoAI, artificial intelligence in teaching and learning, watershed and water resources, environmental restoration, physical geography, geomorphology, and environmental sustainability. Recognized with San Diego State University’s College of Arts and Letters Excellence in Teaching Award, Dr. Bissell combines applied professional experience with pedagogical innovation, technical fluency, and a strong commitment to student engagement.

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2024-2025

• Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty Award - Kishauna Soljour, Department of Classics and Humanities
• Non-Tenure Track Faculty Award - Amanda Beardsley, Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

2023-2024

• Non-Tenure Track Faculty Award - Charlene E. Holkenbrink-Monk, Department of Sociology and James Murren, Department of Political Science

2022-2023

• Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty Award - Stephen Goggin, Department of Political Science
• Non-Tenure Track Faculty Award - Ghassan Zakaria, Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages

2021-2022

• Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty Award - Michael Domínguez, Department of Chicana-Chicano Studies
• Non-Tenure Track Faculty Award - Kristal Bivona, Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies

2020-2021

2019-2020

2018-2019

2017-2018

2016-2017

2015-2016

2014-2015

• Tenured Faculty Award – Irene Lara, Women's Studies
• Tenure-Track Faculty Award – Paul Minifee, Rhetoric and Writing Studies
• Non-Tenure Track Faculty Award – Holly Ransom, European Studies

2013-2014

• Tenured Faculty Award - William Nericcio, English and Comparative Literature and Director, Master of Arts in Liberal Arts & Sciences
• Tenure-Track Faculty Award - Todd Braje, Anthropology
• Non-Tenure Track Faculty Award - Patricia Morgan, Rhetoric and Writing Studies

2011-2012 

• Tenured Faculty Award – Jung Choi, Sociology
• Non-Tenure Track Faculty Award - Jeff Hay, History

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Marie Draz, Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Marie Draz is Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Director of LGBTQ+ Studies at SDSU. Her research focuses on the social, political, and ethical implications of how gender is lived and understood today. She draws on feminist philosophy, critical theory (especially transgender, decolonial, and queer theory), and continental philosophy to ask how and why meanings of gender have shifted over time, paying particular attention to how gender intertwines with other salient categories of difference such as race and sexuality to enable or constrain one’s possibilities in the world. Her work has been published in TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, philoSOPHIA, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy; Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, and "Trans Philosophy" (University of Minnesota Press, 2025).

At SDSU, she teaches courses on topics such as trans feminism, queer theory, and decolonial approaches to gender and sexuality. She is also a proud co-founder of the SDSU Pride Research Symposium, which is now in its 3rd year. This year’s event drew a great crowd and showcased the important student research happening on LGBTQ+ related topics across the university.  

Cheryl O’Brien, Department of Political Science

Cheryl O’Brien is Director of the International Security and Conflict Resolution (ISCOR) Program at San Diego State University. Her research and teaching focus on comparative public policy, social movements and networks, women and politics, policy diffusion, human rights, citizenship, social and environmental justice, and alternative human security issues, including food security.

Her current book manuscript, "Transnational Influences on Subnational State Policy Responsiveness to International Norms on Violence Against Women," builds on her award-winning dissertation research, which received the 2014 Best Dissertation in Women and Politics Award from the American Political Science Association. Using qualitative case studies and statistical analysis, the project examines how international norms and transnational actors shape state responses to violence against women in Mexico and Nigeria. Her research includes extensive fieldwork in both countries, as well as additional experience across Latin America and Africa.

O’Brien earned dual BAs in Sociology and English Literature from the University of Notre Dame, a Master of Education from Harvard University, a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from Towson University, and a PhD in Political Science from Purdue University, where she was inducted into the Teaching Academy for exemplary teaching.

She has worked with NGOs in the United States, Africa, and Latin America on public policy and human security issues. Her work on gender, health, environment, and resource conflict in East African refugee camps contributed to an NGO receiving UNHCR implementing partner status. She has also served as a Gender Specialist for Feed the Future projects in Kenya, Senegal, Ethiopia, Ghana, Bangladesh, and Guatemala.

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2024-2025

• Erika Robb Larkins, Department of Anthropology
• Ricardo Vasconcelos, Department of Spanish and Portuguese

2023-2024

• Olivia Chilcote, Department of American Indian Studies
• Latha Varadarajan, Department of Political Science

2022-2023

• Clare Colquitt, Department of English and Comparative Literature
• Lashon Daley, Department of English and Comparative Literature

2021-2022

• Audrey Beck, Department of Sociology
• Michael Domínguez, Department of Chicana-Chicano Studies
• Isaac Ullah, Department of Anthropology

2020-2021

2019-2020

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