The following individuals have been promoted to
associate professor and awarded tenure.
- G. Stoney Alder, (management)
- Randall Astramovich, (counselor education)
- Daniel Benyshek, (anthropology)
- Bo Bernhard, (hotel management/ sociology)
- Priscilla Finley, (humanities librarian)
- Allen Gibbs, (school of life sciences)
- Kathryn LaTour, (tourism & convention administration)
- Emily Lin, (c&i)
- Sally Miller, (physiologic nursing)
- Edwin Nagelhou, (english)
- Michael Pravica, (physics and astronomy)
- Eduardo Robleto, (school of life sciences)
- Javier Rodriguez, (school of life sciences)
- Susie Skarl, (urban studies librarian)
- Mykola Suk, (music)
- Matthew Tincani, (special education)
- Frank Van Breukelen, (school of life sciences)
- Matt Wray, (sociology)
- Bing Zhang, (physics and astronomy)
The following individual were promoted to Associate Professor in Residence .
- Larry Ashley, (counselor education)
- Tim Gauthier, (university college)
- Colleen Peterson, (marriage & faimly therapy)
- Wendy Woodall, (dental school)
Chad Cross, (environmental and occupational health) was awarded tenure.
Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor
G. Stoney Alder received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1999 in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management and a minor in Organization Communication. He joined the UNLV faculty in August, 2002. He teaches undergraduate Human resource Management courses and Organizational Behavior in both the MBA and Executive MBA programs. His research interests include organizational justice, electronic monitoring, and performance feedback. He has published 18 articles in peer-reviewed journals including Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Information & Management, Human Resource Management Review, Journal of High Technology Management Research, and The Journal of Business Ethics.
Dr. Randall Astramovich is currently a faculty member in the department of counselor education at unlv. He holds a doctoral degree in counselor education from the University of North Yexas. His scholarship focuses on the research training and program evaluation practices of counselors. In summer 2007 his model for counseling program evaluation was published in the flagship peer-reviewed Journal of Counseling & Development. He has also published articles examining doctoral research training in counseling and counselors’ program evaluation skills. His first book on evaluating school counseling programs is scheduled for publication in early 2008.
Daniel Benyshek: I received my Ph.D. form Arizona State University in 2001 after spending several years doing anthropological research in a native American community suffering from an epidemic of diabetes: the village of Supai in Northern Arizona. My research into the causes and prevention for diabetes has appeared in some of the most highly regarded journals in anthropology, nutrition and medicine. My graduate students have won the university’s most prestigious scholarships, fellowships and research competitions. I have also been nominated for two outstanding teaching awards. My service to the community and profession has come primarily through public health outreach and peer review.
Bo Bernhard – Bo J. Bernhard is an honors graduate of Harvard University, where he double majored in sociology and psychology. His final undergraduate thesis (on the social impacts of gambling in Las Vegas) received magna cum laude honors from both departments. This thesis led him to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), where he received his Ph.D. in sociology in 2002. A frequent lecturer on the impacts of the gaming industry in communities around the world, he has delivered over four dozen keynote addresses on six continents. In addition, he has conducted gaming policy advisory work in Brazil, Singapore, South Korea, Russia, South Africa, Australia, Canada, and a number of U.S. jurisdictions. Dr. Bernhard currently holds professorships in UNLV’s departments of sociology and hotel management, and serves as Director of Gambling Research at the university’s International Gaming Institute.
Priscilla Finley is the humanities librarian for the university libraries. She holds a masters of library science from Syracuse University and a masters in english literature from the State University of New York at Binghamton. She selects resources and maintains library collections in literature, theatre, history and philosophy, works with students in classes and workshops offered by the libraries instruction department, and has published articles and made professional presentations about pedagogy and information literacy.
Dr. Allen Gibbs' academic background includes the university of chicago and several university of california campuses. He has published over fifty peer-reviewed publications in highly-ranked journals, and his research has been cited over 800 times by his peers. Dr. Gibbs has received nearly $2 million in research funding while at unlv. Undergraduates from his laboratory have gone on to receive doctoral degrees from such universities as mit, chicago and cornell, and several now have faculty positions. Dr. Gibbs has been an invited speaker at numerous international conferences and is a regular proposal reviewer for the national science foundation and other agencies.
Dr. Kathryn LaTour received her Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Iowa in 1997. Her article "post-experience advertising effects on consumer memory" won the prestigious Ferber Award for best dissertation-based article and the best article of the year in the Journal of Consumer Research. From 1997-2001 she served as a visiting scholar/research associate at the Harvard Business School where she worked on applications of cognitive neuroscience to marketing. Her main research focus has been on the complexity of human memory and she has published numerous articles on this subject appearing in top marketing and hospitality journals.
Emily Lin received her Ph.D. in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education-University of Toronto, Canada. Since joining UNLV in 2002, her professional and scholarly agenda has focused on teacher education reform with a concentration on international studies and comparative teaching and learning in mathematics and science education. Her scholarly activities reflect an evaluative and comparative approach that has culminated in noteworthy national and international journal publications, conference presentations, and funded grants. Her work has been recognized with distinguished awards by leading research associations across the nation.
Dr. Sally Miller led the movement toward significant revision of the nurse practitioner program, and was the first in the school of nursing to develop complete, on-line course delivery. Her program of research emphasizes health promotion, most currently with a focus on obesity management. While at UNLV she has completed three funded research studies, published nine peer-refereed articles and three research abstracts, authored one professional book, and contributed to three others. Dr. Miller has made over 20 national podium presentations. Her professional service includes significant contribution to the university and school, as well as consistent service to professional organizations and local groups.
Edwin Nagelhout - Ed Nagelhout has published an edited collections of essays, an electronic textbook, as well as fifteen articles/chapters in refereed journals, collections and conference proceedings. He has presented more than 60 papers at local, national, and international conferences. He teaches a variety of graduate and undergraduate courses, including College Teaching in language and Literature, Studies in Language, and Advanced Professional Communication. He is the Director of Business Writing. He is the co-editor of the ATTW Bulletin and has served as an external program reviewer for the University of Arkansas-Little Rock and a Stage 1 Reviewer for his field's major conference.
Michael Pravica received his B.Sc. in physics and applied mathematics from caltech and his A.M. and Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University. He has made fundamental contributions to the science of bonding under extreme conditions including discovery of anisotropic x-ray decomposition of organic crystals. He has also made fundamental contributions to nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) by his discovery of the altadena effect and high pressure nmr studies. Dr. Pravica has demonstrated consistent teaching and research mentoring excellence as a dedicated professor at unlv and elsewhere. Dr. Pravica is also passionately committed to communicating the importance of science to the public.
Eduardo Robleto: The Robleto laboratory examines bacterial molecular mechanisms of adaptation to and mutagenesis in stress conditions. Under my direction, a team that includes accomplished undergraduate and graduate students, as well as talented molecular biologists has developed experimental genetic, genomic and biochemical tools to examine and contribute to our understanding of how bacteria adapt to soil environments and how they engage in mutagenic processes in conditions of starvation. Discerning the mechanisms by which bacteria adapt and generate genetic diversity contributes to our understanding of processes implicated in diverse cell responses that include the formation of cancer and aging in animal cells, as well as antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
Javier A. Rodríguez: I am an organismal biologist who has made noticeable contributions to our knowledge of the evolutionary relationships, ecology, patterns of character evolution, and biogeography of several species of non-avian reptiles. In my career I have published 36 peer-reviewed manuscripts, and received approximately $400,000 from the National Science Foundation to support my research program and to increase the research capabilities of UNLV investigators. Students consider my undergraduate and graduate courses well organized, intellectually stimulating, and academically challenging. I perform a considerable amount of service for the School of Life Sciences, including chairing influential committees and serving as its Assistant Director.
Susie A. Skarl received a B.A. in communication from Ohio State University in 1984 and a master’s in library science from Kent State University in 1999. throughout her career, Ms. Skarl has excelled in instruction and outreach to a diverse group of library users in government, special, and academic libraries. in her recent scholarship efforts, Ms. Skarl has focused on initiatives relating to how library instruction can support learning outcomes within the university. In service, Ms. Skarl has focused on building a strong professional development program within unlv libraries, in addition to mentoring actities for new librarians on a national level.
Mykola Suk: Throughout my career I have enjoyed success in three areas of music: performance, teaching, and organizing events. In 1971 I won the first prize gold medal in the Liszt-Bartok Piano Competition; my career as soloist and chamber musician has been international. My piano students have established themselves as teachers and performers; one student won the 2007 North American MTNA Young Artist Piano Competition. I have organized festivals and music series in Kiev, Manhattan, and Las Vegas. In my six years at UNLV I have initiated productive new programs that have enhanced the curriculum and brought new dimensions to the study of music.
Matthew Tincani while at unlv, Dr. Tincani’s accomplishments have included twenty-one publications (journal articles, book chapters, and books on autism spectrum disorders and other topics), in addition to over $280,000 in external grant funding. He founded the unlv center for autism spectrum disorders, nevada’s first university-based research and training center for persons with autism. He has served as committee member for six doctoral dissertations and over one hundered masters degrees, and is coodtinator of unlv’s masters degree concentration in autism. His teaching excellence has been recognized by the unlv college of education distinguished teaching award and unlv student focused faculty award.
Frank van Breukelen: During my career, I have published 40 papers, received over $1.25M in federal funding, produced 8 episodes of a television program designed to increase science literacy in elementary school children, maintained an excellent and extensive teaching record, and taken on an extraordinarily high service load both at UNLV and in the greater scientific community. The efforts of my laboratory are reshaping how we view hibernators and elucidating fundamental mechanisms by which these mammals cope with the extremes of their environment. Our continued efforts may pave the way for medical therapies for diseases such as stroke, disuse atrophy, and cardiac arrythmogenesis.
Matthew Wray – Matt Wray graduated from University of California, Berkeley's doctoral program in Ethnic Studies in 2000 and spent the following academic year as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. There he completed research for his forthcoming book based on his dissertation, Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness (Duke University Press, 2006). Wray writes about cultural and social theory and teaches courses in race and ethnic relations. He is a former editor of the internet journal, Bad Subjects (eserver.org/bs) and co-editor of the Bad Subjects Anthology from NYU Press. He also co-edited White Trash: Race and Class in America (Routledge, 1997), a collection of essays dealing with representations and experiences of poor rural whites in the U.S, and The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness (Duke University Press, 2001), an anthology based on the 1997 Berkeley conference he co-organized.
Dr. Bing Zhang has achieved excellence in teaching, research and service as an assistant professor in the department of physics and astronomy, university of nevada las vegas. As a world leader in the field of gamma-ray bursts, he has published over 140 papers in refereed journals, including 6 articles in nature and two articles in science. As a main author, his discovery paper on the first x-ray afterglow of short duration gamma-ray bursts was ranked as #4 “breakthrough of the year” in 2005 by the science magazine. His publications have been widely cited with one first-author paper identified as new hot paper in space science by essential science indicators. As a team member of swift, he shares the 2007 rossi prize of high energy astrophysics division of american astronomical society.
Promotion to Associate Professor in Residence
Larry Ashley: I have graduate degrees in counseling and health education. I became a visiting professor of counseling in 2000. In 2002, I became an assistant faculty in residence. I have developed 14 courses in addictive disorders and trauma. I am founding director of the unlv problem gambling treatment program, which is one of the few based university based programs in the world. In 2007, I was honored to receive naadac, the Association of Addiction Professionals’ Mel Schulstad award which is presented for outstanding and sustained contributions to the advancement of the addiction counseling profession.
Tim Gauthier: Throughout the past four years I have been actively involved in the creation of a University College culture at UNLV, one that fosters exploration, experimentation and invention. In other words, I have worked at making students aware of the benefits of academic investigation. The concept of interdisciplinary work has also awakened them to heretofore unconsidered possibilities, both academic and professional. My book, Narrative Desire and Historical Reparations, was published by Routledge in 2006. I am currently at work on a study of closure in the contemporary novel. The last three papers I presented at conferences are intended to be chapters in this wide-ranging upcoming text.
Colleen M. Peterson, Ph.D:. My extensive ethics, clinical, and accreditation experience are effectively utilized in my courses, as well as with the department curriculum review/restructuring and seeking COAMFTE accreditation. My course evaluations are positive. My continued research endeavors, although not required by contract, have proven extremely valuable in fostering student development and preventing/managing student impairment. I have numerous national and two international presentations and several publications in the highest ranked MFT journal. My service is stellar, with leadership of the State MFT licensing Board (Chair of Academic Review, Secretary/Treasurer, President) and the National Council on Family Relations, the premier research organization for MFTs
Wendy Woodall, DDS, MAGD, GP board eligible is faculty for clinical dentistry, recognized for her teaching and private practice expertise. She has led an integrated team of 75 students through three successful years of dental delivery. In a newly established dental school program, she created initial competency formats, courses in operative dentistry and board preparation, operative dentistry calibration, and live mock board experiences. She serves as curriculum chair, faculty forum representative, ADEA national council of faculties and ADA site visitor, while remaining active in several regional dental groups. She also pursues care for nevada’s underserved through her service work.
Awarded Tenure
Chad Cross: Dr. Cross’s professional and scholarly goals revolve largely around building bridges among academic disciplines. The nature of his profession as a biostatistician requires that he be able to apply quantitative methods and analytical procedures to a wide range of situations in various fields. To this end, he has had the opportunity to obtain his academic training across disciplines, having completed five college degrees in three fields. His research agenda focuses on applying quantitative and statistical methods to answer complex questions. He works extensively with students as both a teacher and a mentor. He believes that his most important service contribution to the university is the collaborative work that he does with his colleagues and students across campus.