Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Two longtime Mississippi State researchers and administrators are receiving the university’s highest faculty recognition.

Richard L. Brown and Alan I. Marcus formally were named William L. Giles Distinguished Professors during Tuesday’s [April 26] 2015-16 Faculty Awards and Recognition Program.

Though not a faculty rank, the Giles Professorship is a memorial to MSU’s 13th president awarded on the basis of outstanding research, teaching and service to individuals attaining national or international status. For more, see www.giles.msstate.edu.

Brown, who has spent his entire 36-year academic career at the land-grant institution, directs the Mississippi Entomological Museum, a campus repository of approximately 1.5 million specimens that regularly attracts researchers from around the world.

A Cornell University doctoral graduate, Brown also is a specialist in insect taxonomy and systematics in the biochemistry, molecular biology, entomology and plant pathology department of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Since 2005, Marcus has led MSU’s history department in the College of Arts and Sciences. A University of Cincinnati doctoral graduate, he widely is considered to be among a select group of academics whose research has had a major impact on the history of science and technology.

An investigation of the history of cancer is among Marcus’ significant contributions to the overall study of medicine.  

Also during the awards program, associate professor Kelly A. Marsh officially was designated a John Grisham Master Teacher, the tribute to classroom instruction excellence named for the MSU alumnus and internationally recognized author. A member of the English department faculty, Marsh joins the highly select group serving as role models and mentors for campus colleagues.

Representatives of the colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Arts and Sciences, Business and Bagley College of Engineering were others honored at the annual spring-semester program. They included:

—Professor Brian S. Baldwin of plant and soil sciences, the MSU Alumni Association’s Outstanding Graduate Student Mentor Award;

—Academic coordinator Krystle M. Dixon of the Adkerson School of Accountancy, the Irvin Atly Jefcoat Excellence in Advising Staff Award;

—Assistant professor Veera Gnaneswar Gude of civil and environmental engineering, the alumni association’s Early Career Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award;

—Associate professor and director Kimberly C. Kelly of sociology, the association’s Graduate Teaching Excellence Award; and

—Associate professor Lesley J. Strawderman of industrial and systems engineering, the Jefcoat Excellence in Advising Faculty Award.

“We have so many talented and hardworking faculty members, and I think the university is blessed in this sense,” said Julia Hodges, interim provost and executive vice president. “The strengths of a great university always are in its people.

“We extend the thanks of the entire university to these faculty and staff honorees who have distinguished themselves during the 2015-16 academic year; they all are very deserving,” she added.

For more on the MSU Alumni Association, visit www.alumni.msstate.edu; Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President, at www.provost.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.