First-round 2026-27 Faculty Excellence Grants announced

The Center for Faculty Excellence on Friday announced the recipients of the first round of 2026-2027 Faculty Excellence Grants. The grants provide up to $5,000 and are designed to support faculty across all disciplines in enhancing their scholarly work.

College of Agriculture

• Andrew Felton, Land Resources and Environmental Sciences - A pilot study to investigate the dynamics of belowground forage phenology in eastern Montana rangelands
• Laura Jennings, Microbiology and Cell Biology - Uncovering hidden subpopulations of bacterial pathogens with single-cell microfluidics
• Emily Sewell, Agricultural and Technology Education - The eDucATE Effect

College of Arts and Architecture

• Benjamin Fuhrman, School of Music - CRANE Lab 2026
• Dani Huvaere, School of Art - International Medieval Conference

College of Education, Health and Human Development

• Anna Bartkowiak, Counseling - Scholarship in somatic trauma treatment integrating Sensorimotor Psychotherapy training with empirical investigation of student learning outcomes
• Sarah Pennington, Education - Investigation of a successful middle school
• Malory Peterson, Human Development and Community Health - Support for a multilevel Indigenous youth wellness intervention linking land-based learning, physical activity, and cultural strengths

Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering

• Mohammad Khosravi, Civil Engineering - International sabbatical collaboration on permafrost geomechanics and ground improvement technologies
• Anja Kunze, Electrical and Computer Engineering - Field-tuned neurons: magnetic perturbation of mitochondrial architecture and circuit-level energy signaling
• Brock LaMeres, Electrical and Computer Engineering - Securing the nation from satellite-based cyberattacks

Gallatin College

• Kyndra Campbell, Writing and Developmental Humanities - Supporting literacy across the curriculum for developmental readers and multilingual learners
• Elizabeth Noonan, Developmental Math - Developing meaningful classroom changes based on student feedback

College of Letters and Science

• Prasanta Bandyopadhyay, History and Philosophy - Two birds, one stone: from pragmatic Bayesianism to themes from Indian philosophy
• Laura Burkle, Ecology - Advancing research and collaboration in plant-pollinator biodiversity, dynamics, and conservation

MSU Library

• James Thull, Instruction - Collecting the stories of the underrepresented

Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing

• Moyce, Sally, Nursing, Bozeman - Analysis of Spain's 2026 immigration policy

The deadline for the next round of Faculty Excellence Grant proposals is Oct. 30. Faculty with questions about the program are encouraged to contact Shannon Willoughby and Nika Stoop at the Center for Faculty Excellence at [email protected] or 406-994-4555.