Rafferty, Holmes, Rishi and Albin honored as Faculty of the Week

Kansas State University recently honored four faculty members for their outstanding contributions in their fields. Ryan Rafferty and Melissa Holmes were honored at the Feb. 28 men's home basketball game. Susmita Rishi and Nathan Albin were honored at the March 1 women's home basketball game.

Ryan Rafferty

Rafferty is an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and has recently been named the interim director of the Johnson Cancer Research Center. Since arriving at K-State in 2014, Rafferty has taught several different chemistry courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has successfully created a positive classroom climate, inspired his students, and helped them appreciate the importance and relevance of organic chemistry to the outside world.

Rafferty has also completely reorganized the department's organic undergraduate courses and modernized the undergraduate laboratories. Through inventive pedagogy, patience, enthusiasm and a keen appreciation for the needs of each individual student, he has consistently delivered an elevated educational experience to thousands of students.

Rafferty was selected to receive a 2024 Commerce Bank and W.T. Kemper Foundation Undergraduate Outstanding Teaching Award, as well as the 2023 K-State Ervin Segebrecht Award.

Melissa Holmes

For more than 20 years, Holmes, director of research, evaluation and development in the Center for Intercultural and Multilingual Advocacy, has been a catalyst for change through transformative professional development. She prepares pre-service and in-service teachers to identify and leverage the assets and strengths of multilingual students in Kansas and abroad. She develops proposals for external funding and administers funded projects that impact pre-K-12 school partnerships, programs and faculty-student experiences in the College of Education and the global community.

Her efforts contributed to the success of the Go Teacher professional development program and an English as a second language master's degree program for more than 60 scholars. These impactful programs, developed in partnership with Ecuador, led to additional international partnerships and professional development programs with Mexico. Additionally, Holmes supported two cohorts of Saudi Arabian teacher scholars in completing a yearlong professional development program designed to enhance English proficiency and cultivate strategies and skills for effective instruction.

Holmes has had the privilege of guiding and mentoring pre-service teachers of the Bilingual/Bicultural Education Students Interacting to Obtain Success program. The undergraduate students she once supported in completing their bachelor's degrees are now licensed teachers, school and district leaders, and even members of the Kansas Board of Regents.

Susmita Rishi

As an engaged urban scholar, Rishi, associate professor of landscape architecture and regional and community planning, works to challenge and reconceptualize theories of knowledge — as well as the methods and practices of teaching — that undergird the overarching fields of urban and built environment studies.

Rishi's research and scholarship lie at the intersection of housing, social production of home, informality and southern theory. Her ongoing research in India investigates residents' use, appropriation and understandings of their spaces in informal housing to expand the knowledge base on which planning decisions are made.

Extending this focus to the U.S. context, the first phase of her project, "Double-Wide Lives: Realities of chasing the American dream in its mobile home parks," was awarded the K-State Small Research Grant in 2023. Collaborating with colleagues on housing has resulted in a pre-proposal acceptance for a $1 million NSF Innovation Engines project titled "Net-Positive Housing Regional Innovation Consortium." Rishi received the inaugural APDesign Engagement Champions Award in 2024, which led to the establishment of the Better Housing Consortium.

Nathan Albin

Albin, professor of mathematics, joined the K-State math department in August 2011 after completing a Ph.D. at the University of Utah and National Science Foundation-supported postdoctoral work at the University of Duisburg-Essen and Caltech. Albin has worked diligently to improve applied and interdisciplinary master's and doctoral tracks and create and direct the Network Optimization, Design, and Exploration research group, which has earned over a million dollars in extramural funding to date. At every step, he has developed the necessary coursework, even attracting non-degree-seeking students seeking timely specialized professional skills.

Albin has directed nine undergraduate, six master's and six doctoral students in cross-generational training. He is a core part of the team that secured nearly $1.5 million in extramural funding for math graduate training, as well as support for innovative programs at K-State that develop top graduates for rapidly evolving regional and national industries.

The Faculty and Professional Staff of the Week recognitions are coordinated by Faculty Senate, the Office of the President and K-State Athletics. Recipients are selected by Faculty Senate caucuses, provided tickets to a home basketball game of their choice and honored during halftime as a small token of appreciation for their service to K-State.

— Submitted by Susanne Renberg