January 4, 2021
Alex Red Corn, Melanie Derby and Lauren McDaniel recognized as Professors of the Week
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From left: Alex Red Corn, Melanie Derby and Lauren McDaniel were recognized as Professor of the Week. |
Alex Red Corn, assistant professor of educational leadership; and Melanie Derby, associate professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering, and Lauren McDaniel, instructor of kinesiology, were recognized as Professors of the Week at the Dec. 29, 2020, and Jan. 2 men's home basketball games, respectively. Faculty Senate, the Office of the President, K-State Athletics and the Division of Communications and Marketing wish to recognize these individuals' contributions to K-State.
Red Corn's professional life is grounded in his heritage as a member of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma where his family is from and many still live. Red Corn teaches qualitative research courses and shares his research on multiculturalism in education with a focus on the needs of American Indians. He also collaboratively created the Osage Nation Educational Leadership Academy. Red Corn serves as the K-State Indigenous Faculty and Staff Alliance co-chair, executive director of the Kansas Association of Native American Education and program coordinator of the Qualitative Research Graduate Certificate Program. Red Corn has an impressive list of scholarly publications reflecting his research on indigenous populations and multiculturalism in education. He also has represented K-State by serving as an invited speaker and on multiple panels discussing relevant pedagogies, American Indians and other indigenous people and land topics.
Derby joined K-State in 2013 and holds the Hal and Mary Siegele Professorship in Engineering. Derby enjoys teaching thermodynamics, energy and heat transfer courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Derby's research focuses on the heat and mass transfer as it pertains to food, energy and water. She directs the National Science Foundation Research Traineeship at K-State titled Rural Resource Resiliency. She is passionate about working with graduate students in engineering and social sciences to benefit rural communities. Derby's research has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation, NASA, ASHRAE and industry. She is a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, K-State College of Engineering Outstanding Assistant Professor Award, American Society of Mechanical Engineering International Conference on Nanochannels, Microchannels and Minichannels Outstanding Early Career Award, and K-State Multicultural Engineering Program Faculty Engagement Award.
McDaniel joined K-State in 2008 and launched a new anatomy and physiology course. McDaniel serves as the lecture instructor and course coordinator for anatomy and physiology while also teaching multiple Kinesiology elective courses. McDaniel also oversees internships in kinesiology and serves as the coordinator of the Exercise is Medicine on Campus initiative. Under McDaniel's guidance, the initiative has received Silver-level recognition from the American College of Sports Medicine for the past two years. McDaniel is the winner of the 2020 Myers-Alford Teaching award from the College of Health and Human Sciences as well as the past recipient of multiple development grants from K-State Global Campus.