2025 Recipients
Faculty Excellence in Teaching
Bethany Cieslowski
Chief Innovation Officer for Immersive Technologies and Instructional Associate Professor
School of Nursing
Bethany Cieslowski joined the faculty of the School of Nursing as an instructional faculty member in 2021. She serves as the Chief Innovation Officer for Immersive Technologies and the Bachelor of Science in Nursing Director in the College of Public Health (CPH). Since 2017, when she received the Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator (CHSE) certification, she has devoted herself to educating the nursing workforce of the future using simulation and technology. Cieslowski has been a pioneer at George Mason in the use of virtual reality (VR) simulations that immerse students in clinical nursing scenarios. To aid this effort she established the College of Public Health’s VR SIM lab, which is the first lab in the country to receive accreditation from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare for the use of immersive technologies in medical scenarios.
John Toups Presidential Medal for Faculty Excellence in Teaching
Angela Miller
Associate Professor, College of Education and Human Development
Angela Miller is an Associate Professor in the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD). Her primary teaching focus is on quantitative research methods. She taught thirteen different courses in her time at George Mason, and she took the lead in redesigning the research methods curriculum for PhD students and developed three new courses to that end. While her own teaching has been focused on the graduate level, she took a lead role in developing, teaching, and now mentoring graduate students and other faculty in an undergraduate statistics course that is part of the Mason Core for Quantitative Reasoning. Miller makes deliberate efforts to tailor her instruction to the unique needs of her students and she consistently receives outstanding evaluations. She has made significant contributions to graduate mentoring, having chaired six dissertation committees, served as the methodologist on an additional eighteen dissertation committees, chaired six MA thesis committees, as well as an additional sixteen MA capstone projects. She was also a recipient of the 2017 George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award.
Faculty Excellence in Research
Weiwen Jiang
Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Weiwen Jiang, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC), received his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 2019 and spent two years at the the University of Notre Dame as a postdoctoral researcher. Jiang’s research is in the relatively new field of quantum computing, which uses quantum mechanics to enable computers to solve more complicated problems. Jiang’s research has important applications. For example, one of his recent papers combines quantum computational techniques with machine learning to solve problems relating to the discovery of new medicines. Dr. Jiang has an impressive research record of top-tier conference presentations and publications, some of which are in the most selective journals in his field (Nature Communications, Nature Electronics, Scientific Reports).
Xuesu Xiao
Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Xuesu Xiao received his PhD in Computer Science in 2019 from Texas A&M University, and after three years in industry as a roboticist with Everyday Robots, an Alphabet/Google company, he joined the Computer Science Department in the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC). His research aims to develop intelligent mobile robots that can navigate in challenging terrain with minimal human oversight. His cutting-edge work in the field of social robot navigation seeks to develop robots that can navigate human-occupied public spaces safely while respecting social norms. At George Mason, he established the RobotiXX lab, in which he works with postdocs, graduate students, and high school students to develop deployable robots. An outstanding researcher, he was awarded the New Generation Star recognition at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
Aarthi Narayanan
Professor, Biology
Aarthi Narayanan joined the George Mason faculty as a tenure-line faculty in 2013 after spending six years at the National Centre for Biosecurity and Infectious Disease. She is currently a professor in the Biology Department in the College of Science (COS). Her research focuses on the impact of viruses–including SARS-CoV-2, Ebola, Dengue, and HIV–on disease progression at the tissue and cell level. Her work has led to important discoveries in vaccine development, drug discovery, and biomarker identification for infectious diseases. Narayanan has an exceptional record of publications and external funding for her research. Moreover, she has been an exemplary citizen of the university and her profession. She has been a dedicated mentor to emerging scientists in academic and industry settings; a leader in mentoring junior faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and students; a vital contributor to curriculum development for undergraduate and graduate programs; and dedicated to outreach to the local community, participating in STEM programs for girls.
The Beck Family Presidential Medal for Faculty Excellence in Research
Allison Redlich
Professor, Criminology, Law, & Society
Founder and Director, Modeling Decision-Making in the Legal System (MoDiLS) Lab
Allison Redlich is a professor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) and is the Founder and Director of George Mason’s Modeling Decision-Making in the Legal System (MoDiLS) Lab. Her research is deeply interdisciplinary. Trained in psychology, she brings insights from that field to address critical issues facing the legal system. For example, she has published influential research about interrogations and confessions in police and military contexts. This scholarship has been widely cited in amicus briefs to states and the Supreme Court, and Redlich herself has provided expert testimony in important cases involving contested confessions. She has produced similarly influential research on topics such as guilty pleas and mental health courts. Her work is credited with transforming scholarly thinking on these topics, and by all accounts is having a significant impact on current practices within the legal system. A prolific scholar and researcher, she has been elected a Fellow to the three most influential organizations in her academic fields: the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Academy of Experimental Criminology. Redlich has also distinguished herself as a mentor and has received mentoring awards from George Mason and from the American Society of Criminology and the American Psychology-Law Society.
Faculty Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion
Daphne King
Assistant Professor, Social Work
Daphne King joined the faculty at George Mason’s Department of Social Work in the College of Public Health (CPH) in 2020 as an Assistant Professor and also serves as the MSW Online Program Director. Prior to arriving at George Mason, she had an impactful career as a social worker working with individuals experiencing mental health challenges, with homeless and incarcerated populations, and in school social work settings. King’s scholarship and national contributions focus on the intersection of social work practice, clinician identity, and pedagogical strategies. Within the Social Work program at George Mason, she has been proactive in providing leadership in course development, course refresh processes, and faculty training, particularly around online teaching to ensure that there is adequate support for diverse learners in digital and hybrid learning environments.
Janani Umamaheswar
Associate Professor, Criminology, Law, and Society
Janani Umamaheswar joined the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society in 2021 as an assistant professor in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS). She is also an affiliate faculty in the Women and Gender Studies Program. She is an accomplished scholar whose research addresses issues relating to social inequality, punishment and incarceration, and qualitative research methods. In her teaching she makes a point to include a broad range of perspectives on whatever subject matter she is teaching, and in her course design she creates assessment methods that give students of diverse backgrounds and viewpoints the opportunity to share their learning in different modalities. She has also created experiential co-curricular activities designed to help students grasp issues relating to inequality. For example, she worked with the Douglass Project, the country’s foremost prison visitation program, to take George Mason graduate students for a guided dialogue session in the D.C. jail. She has been an active member of the mentoring programs run by multiple divisions of the American Society of Criminology.
United Bank Presidential Medal for Faculty Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion
Jacqueline McDowell
Associate Professor, School of Sport, Recreation, and Tourism Management
Assistant Dean for Faculty Success
Jacqueline McDowell is Assistant Dean for Faculty Success and associate professor in the School of Sport, Recreation, and Tourism Management in the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD). A well-respected scholar, her work focuses primarily on diversity and inclusion in organized sports and recreation organizations. She has published widely in this field, particularly on the experiences of women and sport, such as athletic administrators and coaches. One of her articles was awarded the 2017 President’s Award for Article of Distinction at the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA). In McDowell’s teaching, issues of inclusion are central. She has also been active in advancing inclusion in her professional service, both here at George Mason and in external professional organizations. For example, she serves on the American Kinesiology Association’s Membership Committee, where she has led efforts to bring more HBCUs into the field by developing outreach strategies. Due to the effectiveness of these efforts, she was asked to chair this committee for the American Kinesiology Association.
Faculty Excellence in Social Impact
Margarita Tadevosyan
Research Assistant Professor and Executive Director, Center for Peacemaking Practice, Carter School
Margarita Tadevosyan received her PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University in 2019 and is a research assistant professor and Executive Director of the Center for Peacemaking Practice at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. She is a scholar-practitioner of conflict resolution and local peacebuilding, with a focus on South Caucasus and other post-Soviet areas. Specifically, she focuses on long-term peacebuilding, local conceptions of peace, local practices to build peace, and ways that international and local peacebuilders can work together respectfully. Tadevosyan’s social impact involves fostering dialogue and cooperation between communities that have experienced long-standing conflicts. She has also brought Carter School students into her work as co-planners, co-facilitators, and co-evaluators of conflict resolution and media literacy programs.
Susan Howard
Instructional Associate Professor, School of Integrative Studies
Susan Howard joined George Mason as a full-time faculty member in the School of Integrative Studies in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) in 2016. Howard is an educator, behavioral scientist, and entrepreneur-innovator who leverages and humanizes technology for social impact. Her teaching, research, and entrepreneurial focus is broad, ranging from global health to environmental science and design thinking. Her impact beyond the university has come primarily through the free digital gaming platform that her company has produced for an audience of marginalized youth in India and Nepal. The games, which are free to play, are designed to educate youth about the social and public health decisions they face in their own lives. To extend the impact of her work, Howard has formed partnerships with stakeholders in the adolescent health sector, including NGOs, women entrepreneurs and nonprofits. Howard’s gaming platform, “Games of Choice, Not of Chance,” has received multiple accolades for its work, including the 2024 Innovation Award at the Global Digital Health Summit.
Earle C. Williams Presidential Medal for Faculty Excellence in Social Impact
Rebecca Goldin
Professor, Mathematics
Rebecca Goldin is Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics in the College of Science (COS). For many years she has served as a driving force behind a global effort aimed at promoting statistical literacy among journalists and connecting the scientific community to the media. In that capacity she has written more than 100 articles, appeared in dozens of high-profile news shows and podcasts (CNN, NPR, ABC News and PBS), and has given a great number of public talks and interviews to audiences at major conferences and mathematics festivals. In addition to her far-reaching communication and outreach efforts, Goldin has done extensive volunteer work locally. Her efforts have been widely recognized by professional organizations in her field. In 2013, she was given the Association for Women in Mathematics Service Award for her contributions to the cause of educating women and girls in mathematics. In 2019, she was named a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, an extraordinary honor that goes to only a few mathematics scholars per year, for both her scholarly contributions to the field of differential geometry and for her efforts to promote mathematical and statistical thinking to a wide audience.