Six KU faculty members selected for 2026-27 Big 12 Faculty Fellowship
LAWRENCE — Six University of Kansas faculty members have been selected to participate in the Big 12 Faculty Fellowship program during the 2026-27 academic year.
The program allows tenured and tenure-track faculty on the KU Lawrence campus to expand their research connections within the Big 12 Conference through a variety of scholarly endeavors, which may include collaboration on projects, consultation with faculty and students, providing lectures or symposia, acquiring new skills or accessing unique archives or laboratory facilities.
The 2026-27 Big 12 Faculty Fellowship recipients
- Yoonjung Ahn, assistant professor of geography
- Sarah Cullinan Herring, assistant professor of classics
- David Earll, associate professor of tuba/euphonium
- Sayvon Foster, assistant professor of health, sport & exercise sciences
- Tiffany González, assistant professor of history
- Geoffrey Landman, assistant professor of saxophone.
About the recipients
Yoonjung Ahn
Yoonjung Ahn, assistant professor of geography, will travel to Arizona State University in October to establish research partnerships in hazard and resilience studies and learn more about the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS) program. While at ASU, Ahn will deliver the colloquium presentation “Creating, Validating and Applying Spatial Data to Identify Disparities in Climate and Hazard Resilience” to faculty, graduate students and research staff. Through this exchange, Ahn said she hopes to share methodological expertise in creating and validating high-resolution environmental datasets and identify opportunities for joint grant proposals and publications.
“I initiated conversations with Dr. Dylan Connor at ASU during the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers, and I see this visit as an opportunity to further develop potential collaborations,” Ahn said. “I am especially excited to meet scholars at ASU whose work aligns with my research on climate-related disasters, spatial data creation and hazard resilience.”
Sarah Cullinan Herring
Sarah Cullinan Herring, assistant professor of classics, will visit the University of Arizona in November to partner with professor Arum Park, an expert in the field of reality and representation in Greek philosophy and literature. Together, they will collaborate on the research project "Living Dolls: The Mythical Roots of AI Deepfakes." While at UA, Cullinan Herring will present related research, offer masterclasses and exchange pedagogical ideas with faculty. She also plans to organize a Society of Classical Studies conference panel with Park on AI and myth, which will result in a peer-reviewed essay collection of interdisciplinary reflections on AI in Classics.
“I am very excited to have the opportunity of working with Professor Park on this groundbreaking project, which exposes the long historical and mythical precedents for creating digital replicas of human bodies and explores the ethical implications and gendered power dynamics of deepfake technologies,” Cullinan Herring said.
David Earll
David Earll, associate professor of tuba/euphonium, has been invited to join Texas Tech University for a two-week residency during the spring 2027 semester. During the residency, Earll will provide individual instruction to each student within the tuba/euphonium studio, present masterclasses and special topic presentations for students enrolled in the Texas Tech School of Music and perform a full-length recital. Earll said he hopes to gain fresh perspectives from Texas Tech and build a graduate student recruitment channel through facilitating connections with the students and faculty. Through his recital and presentations on musicianship, Earll plans to foster a creative scholarship exchange that will extend to future engagements.
"I have long been an enormous fan of the innovative and highly effective teaching practices of Dr. Kevin Wass, my Texas Tech colleague,” Earll said. “I'm thrilled to spend two weeks working with his studio and learning more about their competitive but supportive environment and comparing our approaches in long-view student growth planning through applied instruction.”
Sayvon JL Foster
Sayvon JL Foster, assistant professor of sport management in the Department of Health, Sport & Exercise Sciences, will visit Baylor University during the upcoming academic year to study how institutional identity shapes leadership, culture and decision-making in intercollegiate athletics. Foster plans to provide a three-part lecture series to a variety of audiences ranging from undergraduate students, graduate students to practitioners, with a final lecture co-hosted by Baylor’s Sport and Faith Institute. The visit will expand Foster’s research agenda on special mission institutions while strengthening collaborative research on religion, institutional identity and organizational culture within college athletics.
“I am beyond excited to continue my work with my mentor, Dr. Andrew Meyer, through our lecture series at Baylor University,” Foster said. “An essential element of my scholarly and practical approach is to highlight the unique nuances of institutional type on the operations of these athletics spaces. I am confident that our engagement with students and industry practitioners will have a noteworthily positive impact on athletics operations at religiously affiliated colleges and universities.”
Tiffany González
Tiffany González, assistant professor of history, will be hosted by Texas Tech University during the spring 2027 semester. While there, she will conduct research at Texas Tech’s Southwest Collection, an archive that houses unique archival materials on the Mexican American experience. The collection includes records related to former Texas legislator Irma Rangel, one of the earliest Latina-elected political leaders across the U.S. and a central figure in González’s second book project. While at Texas Tech, she will work closely with the Humanities Center and Emily Skidmore, chair of the history department, to provide a brown bag lunch presentation to graduate students and a public lecture on her second book project, with the goal of strengthening future collaborations between the two universities.
“I am deeply honored and excited to visit with colleagues and students associated with the history department and Humanities Center at Texas Tech University,” González said. “The collaboration will, without a doubt, serve as a powerful opportunity to leverage research for my second book project and create more professional development incentives for students that will have long-lasting results for both KU and TTU.”
Geoffrey Landman
Geoffrey Landman, assistant professor of saxophone, will visit the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music in October to exchange pedagogical methodologies of saxophone performance with James Bunte, professor and head of performance studies. Bunte also plans to visit the KU School of Music this fall. While at UC, Landman will lead the saxophone studio, provide masterclasses and lessons, and perform a recital. He hopes to strengthen institutional ties while supporting graduate student recruitment and career opportunities for KU music graduates.
“I’m excited to collaborate with Dr. James Bunte and to work with the very talented saxophone students at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, one of the premier music conservatories in the country,” Landman said. “Through this exchange I hope to both share and learn approaches to saxophone pedagogy and build pathways for graduate recruitment in both directions.”
About the Big 12 Faculty Fellowship
The Big 12 Faculty Fellowship program has a history of enriching Intercollegiate relationships for KU faculty, spanning over two decades.
“The Big 12 Faculty Fellowship is a valuable opportunity for faculty to extend KU's reach and strengthen our partnerships within the Big 12 community,” said Amy Mendenhall, vice provost for faculty affairs. “The significance of these collaborations can be felt through increased research activity and improved student outcomes that positively affect our university community, Kansas’ workforce and beyond.”
Submissions for the 2027-28 Big 12 Faculty Fellowship cycle will open fall 2026. Learn more about the Big 12 Faculty Fellowship.