KU scholars named 2025 Faculty of the Year by Kansas Board of Regents

LAWRENCE — The Kansas Board of Regents named five University of Kansas professors among its 2025 Faculty of the Year award recipients. The winners were recognized at the board’s meeting Sept. 17.

The program recognizes the outstanding contributions of faculty at state universities to teaching, student success, research and Kansas communities. Nominees are selected by the faculty senates at the state universities and awarded by the Regents.

KU faculty winners are Vitaly Chernetsky, David O. Johnson, Dinesh Pal Mudaranthakam, Laurie Steen and Sufi Mary Thomas.

Vitaly Chernetsky

Chernetsky is a professor in the Department of Slavic, German & Eurasian Studies, where he examines literature and film of Ukraine and Russia, cultural aspects of globalization, diasporic cultures and more. 

He is also serving a three-year term as president of the Shevchenko Scientific Society, a Ukrainian-American scholarly institution.

A native of Odesa, Ukraine, Chernetsky completed his doctorate in comparative literature and literary theory at the University of Pennsylvania. 

David O. Johnson

Johnson is a teaching professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, where his research interests include human-robot interaction and natural language processing. He holds a patent on systems and methods for automated evaluation of human speech.

Before beginning his academic career, he spent 31 years in industry as a manager, software developer, sales consultant and business analyst. Johnson received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Kansas State University. He has a doctorate in computer science from KU.

Dinesh Pal Mudaranthakam

Mudaranthakam is an assistant professor of biostatistics and data science and director of research information technology. He also co-directs the Biostatistics and Informatics Shared Resource and is assistant director for the KU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center NeuroImaging Core. As a health policy researcher, Mudaranthakam strives to ease the financial, mental and stress-related barriers cancer and Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers face in obtaining care.

Following a study of computer science at Jawaharlal Nehru Technology University in Hyderabad, India,  Mudaranthakam earned a master’s degree in computer science from Kansas State University and a master’s of business administration from KU. He also earned a doctorate in health policy & management from KU.

Laurie Steen

Steen is a clinical assistant professor of occupational therapy education and program director of the post-professional OT doctoral program. She has more than 20 years of clinical practice experience working in acute care and outpatient rehabilitation settings. In addition to teaching, her faculty practice includes working as a driving rehabilitation specialist in the KU Driving & Mobility Services Clinic and as one of the faculty directors of the JaySTART Clinic.

Steen, a graduate of the KU School of Health Professions’ occupational therapy program, holds specialty practice certifications in both ergonomics and lymphedema, and her research endeavors include clinical assessment of driving abilities in individuals with cognitive impairments and contemporary teaching methodologies in higher education. 

Sufi Mary Thomas

Thomas is a professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery, president of Women in Medicine & Science (WIMS) in the School of Medicine and associate director of basic sciences at the KU Cancer Center. Thomas seeks to understand the role of the tumor microenvironment in facilitating head and neck squamous cell carcinoma progression and to develop effective therapeutic interventions to improve patient longevity and quality of life.

Thomas earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in India from Mumbai University. She earned a doctorate in applied biology from the University of Mumbai and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.