Impactful Teaching and Research Faculty Highlights February 2025

Impactful Teaching Faculty Highlight

Idaho State University recognizes Dr. Steve Byers, professor of finance and chair for the Department of Finance and Economics as part of a monthly Impactful Teaching and Research initiative honoring faculty. 

Byers was recently named the first recipient of the Gary D. and Susan G. Campbell Dr. Bill Phillips Endowed Professor of Finance by ISU’s College of Business.

The professorship, established by alumni Gary and Susan Campbell, was created to support professors who demonstrate similar qualities to those of Dr. Bill Phillips, a College of Business professor who taught finance for several years and impacted many students with his dedication to their success.

Byers teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in corporate finance, investments, financial institutions management, and health care finance. He is a consultant in the areas of corporate finance and valuation. He frequently conducts executive development in-house programs for corporations and teaches abroad at Iceland's Rekjavik University master’s of business administration program.

Prior to becoming a professor, Dr. Byers worked in corporate finance at NCR Corporation and Bristol-Myers Squibb. He also served as an officer in the U.S. Navy on board nuclear submarines. 

"Dr. Byers represents the best of what it means to be a professor. His teaching, research and service have made countless students and the entire Idaho State University community better for many years and I am thrilled he will be the first endowed finance professor in ISU history,” said College of Business Dean Shane Hunt.

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Impactful Research Faculty Highlights

Impactful Research Faculty highlights include four CAREER Program grant recipients who together have brought over $6 million to ISU in support of innovative research and student learning opportunities.

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is one of the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards. It is designed to support faculty who are recognized early in their career with potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. 

Dr. Anna Grinath, Associate Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences

Grinath’s research examines how undergraduate students learn science through participation, and is designed to support effective biology teaching and learning. 

“At its heart, science moves forward through the construction and critique of knowledge claims — two central and interrelated practices that scientists use to do their work,” Grinath says. “Student participation in science practices through construction and critique is an essential, but largely absent, part of learning in university science classrooms.”

Grinath’s Biology Learning and Teaching lab addresses this challenge by studying how undergraduate students shape their ways of participating in construction and critique of knowledge claims and examining how such participation in science practices supports science learning. Grinath’s research has examined these concepts in a variety of biology courses, summer research experiences, and as part of novel course-based research experiences, resulting in instructional tools and design recommendations for effective biology teaching and learning. 

“Dr. Grinath was an exceptional mentor throughout my master’s research experience,” says Alyssa Freeman, a graduate student in Grinath’s lab. “She fostered a nurturing environment among her students that encouraged curiosity, critical thinking, and community. Her support gave me the confidence to continue my education by pursuing a Ph.D. in biology education. I will always be grateful for her guidance and the lasting impact she has had on my professional growth” 

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Dr. Cori Jenkins, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry

Jenkins’ goal is to use green chemistry principles to create sulfur-based polymers to help solve environmental problems that plague our world today. 

Sulfur is extracted from crude oil to prevent the release of SO2 during combustion, which can cause respiratory problems and form acid rain. This leads to millions of tons of excess sulfur produced each year making it inexpensive and abundant. 

“Our primary methodology, inverse vulcanization, offers an efficient, solvent-free path to turn reclaimed sulfur waste into functional polymers,” Jenkins explains. “The simple, rapid synthesis and inexpensive reagents make these materials practical and cost-effective for large scale applications.” 

Jenkins and her students have also been able to create polymers from garlic oil, a renewable sulfur source, and incorporate other renewable monomers to create more sustainable adhesives. Slight modification to the methodology led to the first water-soluble, sulfur-based polymers, limiting the need for volatile and sometimes toxic solvents and expanded the applications. These polymers can selectively remove gold ions from a mixture of different metals allowing precious resources to be reclaimed from complex waste streams, like electronics waste, helping create a circular economy.  The same material also undergoes a color change in the presence of heavy metals, providing an easy way to detect lead in water. 

The NSF funding provides undergraduates with the training in critical thinking, safety and scientific communication necessary to be successful in the STEM workforce.

“Most of the research in our lab deals with synthesizing sulfur-based polymers from sulfur waste generated by the petroleum industry, and I find it pretty cool that we take ‘waste’ and convert it to materials with relevant uses in society,” said Cal Norby, a student working in Jenkins’ lab.

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Dr. Sarah Godsey, Associate Professor, Department of Geosciences

Dr. Sarah Godsey's CAREER research is focused on how streams respond to droughts, with a focus on mountain and polar systems. Her work aims to improve understanding of how interactions between climate and plants affect the way that water moves from mountains to rivers across Eastern Idaho. One recent study led the non-profit Henry's Fork Foundation to look at how they can improve summer water flow predictions by including precipitation amounts being used by headwater forests. 

Her current mountain research focuses on the rain-to-snow transition zone – those locations on the landscape where precipitation may fall as rain or as snow during the winter (or even during a single storm), making both floods and droughts difficult to predict. She’s particularly intrigued by where, when, and why streams go dry during droughts. In polar systems, she studies permafrost in northern Alaska, collecting field data and modeling future trends in how water and nutrients may respond to climate change. 

“In Idaho, we actually have many streams that are dry for much longer than just a few days; they'll dry for a few months or even longer each year,” Godsey says. “It turns out that when streams dry, they can have impacts downstream on water bodies like streams and rivers that flow year round, and so understanding what's going on up in the tips of a watershed, in the headwaters that drain down, turns out to be really important for both water quantity as well as water quality, which can have an impact on us year round from year to year.” 

In addition to scientific instruments, studying water levels in the Idaho outdoors requires survival skills as well. 

“One of the neat things that I think that you've contributed to the department in your time here has been to help put together a gear closet so that students have the opportunity to go out into the field and do so safely, making sure that everybody's got what they need for that,” says Martin Blair, vice president for research and economic development. 

Godsey adds, “You never know what's gonna happen when you're doing field work, but collecting this really difficult to collect data is one of the joys of doing field science and then seeing the data streams at the end, and what you can learn from these is just so important.”

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Dr. Devaleena Pradhan, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences

Over the past two decades, including the last seven years at Idaho State University, Dr. Devaleena Pradhan has been at the forefront of utilizing non-traditional species of wild-caught songbirds and fish to understand how hormones shape anatomical features and complex social behavior. She and her trainees combine approaches in chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, and engineering design to unravel these intricate and specialized behavioral processes. 

Through the development of a “Vertically Integrated Project” course, she has enhanced the opportunities for scholarship and scientific exploration in the Department of Biological Sciences.

The NSF CAREER grant has enabled her to expose those at all levels to not only develop hands-on innovative research approaches using field and lab techniques but also provided professional development opportunities through attending and presenting research at national scientific conferences. 

“We are focused on the systematic investigation of hormone-function relationships in socially living animals using innovative and cutting-edge technology from different scientific disciplines,” Pradhan explains. “We create an active learning environment that engages scientific discovery at all levels – including high school, undergraduates, post baccalaureate, graduate students and postdoctoral.”

Makenzie Reed, PhD student says, “Working in Devaleena Pradhan’s Integrative Physiology Lab has given me the opportunity to grow as a scientist and integrate my field of biomechanics with her expertise of endocrinology. Dr. Pradhan encourages me to explore and develop my own ideas, for example, studying the relationships between morphological features and social behavior in our study organism. She encourages me to take leadership roles and models how to help undergraduate and graduate students develop, preparing me for a successful career.”