Five faculty members earn top honors from Wayne State Board of Governors

The Wayne State University Board of Governors upheld its tradition of honoring faculty excellence at its April 24 meeting by presenting its annual Faculty Recognition Awards. Five full-time faculty members were selected for this prestigious honor based on their outstanding accomplishments during the previous academic year, including their notable publications. 

"The Board of Governors is honored to celebrate faculty whose work continues to shape the future of Wayne State and the communities we serve," said Bryan C. Barnhill II, chair of the Board of Governors. "Their commitment to innovation and discovery reflects Wayne State's dedication to advancing research and academic excellence at every level."

Each recipient will receive an award of $2,500. The award focuses on a specific work of merit completed within the 12-month period immediately preceding the award year. Recipients are selected by an advisory committee of their peers, all of whom are previous winners. 

This year's Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Awards recipients are:  

• Natalie Bakopoulos, associate professor in the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Tamara L. Bray, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Thomas Kuntzleman, assistant professor of teaching in the Department of Chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Jennifer Olmsted, associate professor in the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art, Art History, and Design in the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts
• Adi Tarca, professor in the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics in the School of Medicine

Natalie Bakopoulos

For Natalie Bakopoulos, storytelling becomes a way to explore identity across borders. In her novel Archipelago, a writer travels through Croatia and Greece, grappling with memory, displacement and a shifting sense of self. Blending personal narrative with mythology, Bakopoulos offers a deeply human look at what it means to belong.

"I'm very honored to receive the Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award for Archipelago, and I'm happy the university continues to support and value the importance of art - both its creation and the vibrant conversations around it. This novel, like all novels, owes a great debt to the works of literature that have inspired me, including The Odyssey, which I wanted to echo and playfully subvert. By writing a novel about an unnamed translator, I hoped to explore the complicated nature of borders and naming, the rhetoric of home and homecoming, the power of language and narrative, and the way memories and histories remain buried in landscapes."

Tamara L. Bray

Long before written records, everyday objects told the story of an empire. Tamara L. Bray's book Objects of Empire: The Ceramic Tradition of the Imperial Inca State reveals how pottery functioned as more than household wares - it helped connect communities, communicate identity and reinforce the authority of the Inca state.

"The book represents the culmination of many years of fieldwork, museum research and sustained engagement with the material record of the Inca Empire," she said. "It was motivated by a desire to better understand imperial ceramics not simply as artifacts, but as active participants in social, political and ritual life. I hope that readers - whether students, scholars or a broader public - come away with a greater appreciation for the complexity of Inca material culture and the ways in which objects can illuminate relationships of power, identity and practice across the empire."

Thomas Kuntzleman

In Thomas Kuntzleman's classroom, chemistry isn't just taught - it's demonstrated. His book Chemical Demonstrations for High School and General Chemistry turn complex concepts into hands-on experiments, making science more approachable and engaging for students.

"Chemistry is best learned through experience - or should I say through experimentation," he said. "I endeavored to create a suite of demonstrations that illustrate chemical concepts in vivid and memorable ways. Each demonstration is intended primarily for teachers of chemistry to share with their students. Ihope to make chemistry accessible to as wide an audience as possible. Despite the minimalist approach, each experiment can be quantitatively analyzed, allowing students to develop a deeper understanding of a variety of chemical principles - just using stuff found in Wal-Mart."

Jennifer Olmsted

Art history seeks to understand how artists engage with society, culture and representation. In Delacroix's Moroccans: Art and Masculinity, Jennifer Olmsted re-centers the importance of Morocco in French artist Eugène Delacroix's work and offers a fresh perspective on the intersection of art and power in the age of empire.

"I'm honored to receive this recognition from the Board of Governors for a project that was motivated by my desire to understand why Morocco was so important for the artist and how he explored it in his work," she said.

"I hope my readers and students will be inspired to pause and look more closely - with curiosity and an open mind - at art in the world around them."

Adi Tarca

At the intersection of data science and medicine, Adi Tarca is unlocking new insights into pregnancy and human development. His research publication Placental Epigenetic Clocks Derived from Crowdsourcing: Implications for the Study of Accelerated Aging in Obstetrics uses large-scale molecular data and international collaboration to better understand placental ageing and improve outcomes for mothers and babies.

"After 20 years and 230 publications at Wayne State, it is deeply fulfilling to be recognized by the Board of Governors," he said. "The study being honored highlights an important principle: the way we analyze complex data can be just as critical as the quality of the data itself. It also underscores the value of engaging the broader community in the research process - an approach that ultimately benefitseveryone involved."