2021 College/School Research Awards

The 2021 College of Education researcher of the year is Dr. Amanda Sugimoto. Sugimoto is an assistant professor in the college's Department of Curriculum and Instruction. After a decade as an elementary teacher, Sugimoto began work at PSU in 2016. She received a doctorate from the University of Arizona in Teaching and Teacher Education with an emphasis on preparing teachers to work equitably with linguistically and culturally diverse students. Her teaching at PSU includes courses on mathematics methods and planning, instruction, and assessment to teacher candidates in the elementary teacher education program. Sugimoto also works with local schools to provide professional development around mathematics education. Her research focuses on improving the educational experiences and access of linguistically and culturally diverse students, particularly in elementary mathematics classrooms. She explores the role of language and culture in mathematics teaching and learning, and how teachers can support students' linguistic and mathematical development in tandem. To support her research, Sugimoto has received a PSU Faculty Development Grant, President's Diversity Mini Grant, and is currently collaborating on two cross-institutional NSF grants.   

The 2021 College of Liberal Arts & Sciences researcher of the year is Dr. Jola Ajibade. Ajibade is an assistant professor geography. Her research lies at the intersections of climate adaptation, urban development, resilience planning, societal transformation, and multiple dimensions of justice. She applies an environmental justice and political ecology lens to study how individuals, communities, and cities respond to climate change and their different capacities for adaptation and transformation. Specifically, she examines the politics of adaptation, demonstrating how historical injustices, planning policies, state practices, and utopian solutions to climate change entwine with exclusionary development patterns to undermine disadvantaged groups and communities.

Most of Dr. Ajibade’s work focuses on coastal cities of the Global South including Lagos, Manila, and Tokyo, where she examines mega-development projects, eco-gentrification processes, smart city planning, managed retreat programs and policies, and the gendered-impacts of disasters and adaptation. She is also exploring resilience planning for cascading disasters in the Portland metro area. Dr. Ajibade holds a Ph.D. in Geography and Environmental Sustainability from Western University, Canada; an M.A. in International Law and Human Rights from the University for Peace, Costa Rica; and a B.A. in Philosophy from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. She is an NSF-Funded Enabling Fellow for the Next Generation of Hazards and Disaster Researcher. Her research has been published in the Journal of Global Environmental Change, Climatic Change, Geoforum, Climate and Development, Journal of Political Ecology, and Journal of Environmental Management. Dr. Ajibade has been featured in Science Friday, NPR, Yale Environment 360, New Internationalist, and Vice. She is currently working on two books on climate relocation, managed retreat, and socio-environmental justice.

The 2021 College of the Arts researcher of the year is Assistant Professor George Colligan. Colligan is not only one of the great jazz pianists of his generation, but he has earned an international reputation as a multi-instrumentalist (drums, trumpet, organ, keyboards), composer, accompanist, teacher, and bandleader, as well as a popular blogger(jazztruth.blogspot.com). Winner of the 2015 DownBeat magazine Critics Poll (Keyboard), he has had a long association with living jazz legend Jack DeJohnette; recent touring took Colligan around the U.S. with “An Evening with Jack DeJohnette and Savion Glover.” With over 130 albums to date as an accompanist, Colligan has worked with a long list of jazz greats, including John Scofield, Buster Williams, Cassandra Wilson, Don Byron, Ravi Coltrane, and many others. His latest album, "Theoretical Planets: Long Term Goals” (PJCE Records 2021) is his 34th as a bandleader. Colligan, a New York resident for 15 years, now resides in Portland, Oregon where he is an Associate Professor at Portland State University. He recently won a RACC Grant(2019) as well as the PSU College of The Arts Dean’s Council Award for Research, Scholarship, and Creativity (2020).

The 2021 College of Urban & Public Affairs researcher of the year is Dr. Melody Valdini. Valdini is a professor and chair of the political science department as well as the associate editor of the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy. Her research focuses on the consequences of institutional design, with a particular focus on electoral systems, political parties, and women's descriptive representation. She has published in the American Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, Electoral Studies, and Politics & Gender, and won the Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for a project on gender stereotypes and political corruption. In addition, Dr. Valdini is the author of two books: The Character of Democracy: How Institutions Shape Politics (with Richard Clucas) and, most recently, The Inclusion Calculation: Why Men Appropriate Women's Representation (both published by Oxford University Press). In 2020, she was awarded the Victoria Schuck Award by the American Political Science Association, which recognized her book, The Inclusion Calculation: Why Men Appropriate Women's Representation, as the best book published in 2019 on the topic of women and politics. She teaches courses on comparative politics, with a focus on representation, institutions, and the regions of Latin America and Europe. 

The 2021 Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science researcher of the year is Dr. Jonathan Bird. Bird is an associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department. He obtained his undergraduate engineering degree,B.E. (Hons), from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 2000 and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2004 and 2006 respectively. Before joining Portland State University. Dr. Bird worked at General Motor’s Advanced Technology Center in Torrance, CA from 2007 - 2009 and was also an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, from 2009 till 2015.  Professor Bird’s research areas are at the intersection of applied electromagnetics, mechanics, and controls. Dr. Bird current research interests relate to the development of magnetic gears and variable stiffness magnetic springs for use in resonant ocean generators, electric aircraft, and electric boat propulsion. Dr. Bird also has a long-term research project focused on electrodynamic wheel technology for maglev propulsion. Dr. Bird's research has been primarily supported by NSF, DOE, and NASA.

The 2021 OHSU-PSU School of Public Health researcher of the year is Dr. Christina Sun. Sun is an assistant professor. Her research seeks to improve the lives of communities disproportionately affected by HIV and sexual and reproductive health disparities, including Latino, black, and LGBTQ communities. Sun’s recent work includes developing and testing behavior change interventions and examining the dissemination and implementation of effective behavioral and biomedical interventions. Her research has found acceptable and feasible ways that social and sexual networking applications on smartphones and other mobile devices can be used to promote HIV testing to men who are at increased risk for HIV. She has also demonstrated the continued long-term health impacts of an HIV intervention for Latino men that has been identified as a “best-evidence” intervention by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She has also partnered with three community organizations to study the implementation of the intervention in real-world settings.

The 2021 School of Social Work researcher of the year is Dr. Amie Thurber. Dr. Thurber is an assistant professor whose scholarship focuses on building more just neighborhoods through innovations in policy, practice, and participatory inquiry. She is currently the Principal Investigator on a multi-year study evaluating the effects of a housing preference policy on wellbeing. Portland's North/Northeast (N/NE) Preference Policy was among the first in the nation to recreate housing access in a historical community of color to those displaced by urban renewal and gentrification. This study, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Lisa Bates (CUPA), evaluates the intended and unintended consequences of the policy on returning residents. Support for this research is provided in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Policies for Action program. Dr. Thurber has conducted action research in partnership with tenant rights groups in Nashville, TN, and Portland, OR. Her study of an innovative neighborhood-based response to gentrification was awarded the 2019 Award for the Best Dissertation by the Society for Community Research and Action. Co-editor of the book I’ll Take You There: Exploring Nashville’s Social Justice Sites, Dr. Thurber led the collaborative process that engaged 125 Nashville residents in writing place-stories to counter dominant narratives of the city and to surface historic and ongoing efforts to advance justice. Thurber’s scholarship has amplified the distinct contributions that social work can make to address the harms of gentrification, and contributed to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning related to racial justice education and community-engaged teaching.

The 2021 School of Business researcher of the year is Dr. Meredith Woehler. Woehler is an Assistant Professor of OBHRM at Portland State University. She received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the University of Kentucky in 2017. Meredith’s research generally encompasses two primary themes. First, she is interested in how employees drive and handle change. She studies how employees handle large organizational changes, such as mergers and acquisitions, as well as how individuals drive more micro-changes, such as changing their network of workplace relationships, driving innovative changes in the workplace, and driving changes in their careers by quitting their jobs. Second, she is interested in employees’ individual differences, including gender and political skill. Her work is often at the intersection of these two themes. Meredith’s research has appeared in Organization Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Journal of Management. She is proud to be named the Portland State University School of Business 2020 Researcher of the Year. Meredith teaches the Contemporary Organizational Leadership undergraduate course at Portland State. In her free time, Meredith enjoys outdoor activities like rock climbing, camping, hiking, and kayaking.