OPA Faculty Mentor of the Year Award Recipients

Bruce Weinberg, PhD

Eric Byron Fix-Monda Endowed Professor, Department of Economics, College of Arts and Sciences

Dr. Weinberg is an endowed professor in the Department of Economics whose research focuses on changes in the wage structure and family and neighborhood determinants of youth outcomes. His research has been supported by the NIH, NSF, and Kauffman, Sloan, and Templeton Foundations. He has advised policy makers at a variety of levels and served on two working groups of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director focused on the next generation of the biomedical research workforce. In one of his recent publications published in Nature, he shows using national datasets that the gender gap in the number of papers produced in the sciences can be attributed to women receiving less credit for their contribution and not to the productivity differences between men and women.

Over the last two decades, he has mentored 59 graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, 29 of whom have subsequently gone on to secure tenure-track positions at leading institutions across the world. He is a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion and has promoted the retention and recognition of women scholars in the field of economics throughout his research career. He is committed to ensuring the success of his mentees and devotes substantial time to their mentorship, professional and career development, and to expand their professional networks for research collaborations and career pursuits.

Eben Kenah, PhD

Associate Professor of Biostatistics

Prior to joining Ohio State, Dr. Kenah held academic positions at the University of Florida and the University of Washington. Dr. Kenah’s primary research interest is in infectious disease epidemiology. He has developed novel statistical methodologies based on causal inference, survival analysis, and statistical inference for improved study design and analysis of epidemic data. Besides his prolific academic credentials, he has also gained experience infield epidemiology as a biostatistical consultant at ICDDR,B in Bangladesh. Dr. Kenah has been a continuous grantee of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) including multiple R01s.

Grzegorz (Greg) Rempała, PhD

Professor of Biostatistics and Mathematics

Dr. Rempała was the Interim Director of the Mathematical Biosciences Institute (MBI) from September 2016 to December 2017. He was one of the leading figures at Ohio State in the Infectious Diseases Institute’s pandemic response modeling during the COVID-19 pandemic. His mathematical interests are classical probability theory, mathematical statistics, and the theory of stochastic complex systems. He also works in computational genomics and bioinformatics, as well as mathematical epidemiology. Dr. Rempała has been a continuous grantee of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is also an elected fellow of the Collegium of Eminent Scientists of Polish origin at the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York.

Wasiur Khuda Bukhsh stressed their commitment to fostering independent research among their advisees, their dedication to helping their mentees connect with other researchers, and their willingness to guide trainees along their larger career paths.

Being nominated for this award is an indication of high-quality mentoring, For this reason, we would like to honor the nominees by listing them here.

Kentaro Fujita, PhD

Department of Psychology

Dr. Fujita was nominated by a former postdoctoral advisee, Laura Wallace. Dr. Fujita works with his mentees to promote their overall professional development, establish a strong community in the research group, connect his advisees with other researchers in the field, and guide them on their career trajectories.

John Beacom, PhD

Henry L. Cox Professor of Physics and Astronomy, a Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences, and Director of the Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP). 

Dr. Beacom is a member of OPA’s Postdoctoral Advisory Council and is the mentor for Presidential Postdoctoral Scholar Dr. Steven Prohira.  He was nominated by a group of 14 present and recent CCAPP postdocs, led by Dr. Tim Linden.  Dr. Beacom takes a comprehensive approach to mentoring, covering scientific development, communication skills, interdisciplinarity, how to teach and mentor, public outreach, and anything else needed to help people do their best work and grow into scientific leaders.  This year alone, four of his postdoc and student mentees are starting faculty jobs.

In 2020 the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA), in partnership with Garnett-Powers & Associates, Inc. awarded John Beacom the Mentor Award. The award recognizes a faculty member or advisor who has engaged in exceptional mentoring of postdoctoral scholars.

Ponnuswamy Sadayappan, PhD

Dr. Sadayappan was nominated by a former postdoctoral mentee, Dr. Aravind Sukumaran Rajam, who has moved on to a senior engineer position. As an exceptional mentor and advisor, Dr. Sadayappan has guided a number of postdoctoral scholars who have moved onto positions in academia and industry. Dr. Sadayappan has prepared his trainees for academic and non-academic positions by providing them with opportunities for professional development such as improving teaching and communication, learning new technical skills, and honing scientific writing.

Gerald Frankel, PhD

Dr. Frankel was nominated by four of his postdoctoral mentees, who have articulated the quality of training, support, and mentorship they have received while working in his laboratory. In addition to conducting an extremely productive working atmosphere for his mentees, Dr. Frankel has notably made efforts to enhance the postdoctoral experience for the individuals that nominated him, by providing hands-on experiences for professional and personal development.

Noah Weisleder, PhD

Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology in the College of Medicine

Dr. Weisleder was nominated by two of his postdoctoral mentees who articulated the outstanding training, support and mentorship they have received while working in his laboratory. In addition, Dr. Weisleder has been a strong supporter of the Postdoctoral Association and has become involved in other initiatives through the PAC, such as moderating a peer writing group for postdoctoral scholars working on faculty applications. Through his mentorship and involvement, Dr. Weisleder demonstrates his interest and dedication to serve the postdoctoral community at Ohio State.