Faculty and staff sketches

October 28, 2025 (Volume 49, Number 5)

Copy URL

At left, Joy Murerwa, a finance and accounting major, works to pump up her classmates before the REP4 FinLit Launch on the City Campus. Murerwa and Michelle Walters were interviewed by WOOD-TV about a partnership to support the program.

Photo Credit: Cory Morse

In the News
Michelle Walters, program director for Financial Aid, and student Joy Murerwa were interviewed by WOOD-TV for a story about Fifth Third Bank and its foundation partnering with REP4 FinLit.

Three people from GVSU will participate in the Michigan ACE Women's Network's Senior-Level Leadership Job Shadow Program, which provides mid-level women leaders who aspire to senior-level positions the opportunity to enhance their professional knowledge with the guidance of a senior staff leader who serves as their mentor. Jenny Hall-Jones, vice president for Student Affairs, will serve as a mentor; Meagan Treadway, director of special projects, Charter Schools; and Catherine Meyer-Looze, associate professor and chair of educational leadership and counseling, were selected as mentees.

Jan Brashler, professor and curator emeritus of anthropology, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Michigan Historic Preservation Network at its October banquet. The award was presented to Brashler for "decades of excellence in protecting Michigan’s archaeological resources and for sharing her skills, knowledge and passion for the past."

Sketches
Julie Bekius, assistant professor of nursing, received the MSU College of Nursing Alumni Service Award for 2025.

Alan Steinman, Allen and Helen Hunting research professor at AWRI, gave a plenary address, “Understanding the Great Lakes: It’s More than Just Phosphorus,” at the International Symposium on Biogeochemistry of Aquatic Ecosystems in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

David Alvarez, professor of English, wrote an article, "Colonialist Paeans and Postcolonial Poetics: Leopold P. Sanguinetti's 'The Calpean Sonnets' and Giordano Durantes 'West,'" published in the International Journal of Iberian Studies

Abishek Balsamy Kamaraj, associate professor of engineering, received the Gene Haas Foundation Grant for Post-Secondary Education, which will provide scholarships for students enrolled in a CNC machining-based engineering program, removing a barrier to higher education.

Jiaxin Du, assistant professor of computing, received a subaward from Cleveland State University as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative. As an institutional principal investigator, Du will bring expertise in artificial intelligence and natural language processing to address unprocessed sexual assault kits. 

Elizabeth Stolle, professor of literacy studies, educational foundations and technology, was a co-author of a book, Critical Friendship as a Self-Study Research Tool: A Comprehensive Resource Exploring the Complexities, published by Springer.

Categories

Faculty & Staff Sketches