Teresa Carithers (front, second from left), interim dean of the School of Applied Sciences, welcomes post-doctoral research associate Heontae Kim (front, left) and new faculty members Vishaka Rawool (front row, third from left) and Marcia Cole and (back row, from left) Taeyeon Oh, Thomas Andre, Min Jung Kim, Shaun Riebl and Ovuokerie Addoh. Photo by Kevin Bain/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services
OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi’s School of Applied Sciences recently welcomed seven faculty members to the university’s professional school where academic study, clinical training, creative research, service-learning and outreach aim to improve human health and well-being.
The new appointments span several of the school’s academic and service units:
Health, Exercise Science and Recreation Management
With a 30 percent enrollment increase over the last three years and a 78 percent increase in research productivity since 2016, the Department of Health, Exercise Science and Recreation Management, or HESRM, welcomed four new assistant professors in Taeyeon Oh, Thomas Andre, Ovuokerie Addoh and Min Jung Kim to fill recent faculty vacancies.
With a Ph.D. from Seoul National University and post-doctoral research fellowship from the Center for Global Sports and Recreation Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, Oh brings a research focus in data analytics of sport phenomena, sports marketing, and media and sports industry.
“(The Department of) Applied Sciences at the University of Mississippi pays attention and invests its resources in analytics, which is my primary research interest,” said Oh. “I was hired not only as new faculty, but also to help pioneer new programming in sport analytics.
“My primary concern is to build and develop new courses, making sure they fit well with the existing classes in the department,” Oh continued.
Oh brings new data analytics techniques that will enhance researchers’ abilities to work with big data and advanced statistical problems . These are welcome skills for the department’s new Health and Sports Analytics Laboratory, under the direction of department Chair Minsoo Kang, and the school’s new Applied Sciences Research and Analytics Laboratory, opening this year.
Andre brings teaching and research experience from both Clayton State University and Baylor University, where he earned his doctorate. He also brings experience in personal training, rehabilitation and wellness programming.
He is author and contributor to journal articles that span a wide range of research areas within his discipline, from resistance training and skeletal muscle adaptation to dehydration and supplemental performance nutrition.
Addoh joins the HESRM faculty with education and training in medicine from Igbinedion University Okada in Nigeria and health and kinesiology from Ole Miss. Addoh, an August 2018 doctoral graduate, has been named director of research engagement for the Jackson Heart Study’s Vanguard Center at Oxford.
“Within the next year, I will be creating a new lab, the Physical Activity Translational Health Science, or PATHS, Lab,” he said. “This new line of inquiry will be complementary to ongoing work in applied sciences.
“I hope to further integrate with the ongoing Flagship Constellation for Community Wellbeing. Within the next five years, I hope to contribute to the translation of research findings into community practice.”
This is Kim’s first full year as a faculty member, having joined HESRM in the spring with a background in sports management, organizational behavior and human resource management in sport from Florida State University. With previous work as an FSU sport management instructor and sports management graduate coordinator at East Stroudsburg University, she brings unique experience and research interests to the sport and recreation management area of HESRM.
Kim said she is looking forward to enhancing the sport and recreation management emphasis in the doctoral program and contributing to its success. Measurement and statistics are her strong suit, and Kim hopes to bring those skills to her doctoral students and the new departmental and schoolwide analytics laboratories.
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Vishaka Rawool joins the school as chair and professor of communication sciences and disorders. She was attracted to the School of Applied Sciences because of its wide breadth of departments and potential to conduct collaborative research across fields of health and human services.
Over the next five years, she hopes to ensure reaccreditation of the master’s program in speech-language pathology, improve the national ranking of the program and establish a doctoral program in communication sciences and disorders.
“My research interests are unique – prevention, diagnosis and remediation of age-related deficits in speech perception – relative to other research expertise in the department,” Rawool said. “I have 40-plus years of experience in providing clinical services, teaching and administration.”
Marcia Cole’s advanced academic preparation in sociology provides a rich foundation for her new role as lecturer and director of internship and community engagement for the school’s new applied gerontology program.
She is well-acquainted with departments across the school from her previous roles as lecturer in nutrition and hospitality management from 2008 to 2016, adjunct instructor in legal studies in 2006 and associate director of projects in social work in 2003-05. Most recently she served as an academic mentor for students in the Fastrack Program in the College of Liberal Arts.
“I am excited about the new challenges involved in developing and implementing a new academic program,” Cole said. “By actively participating in the marketing of the applied gerontology program, I hope to increase the number of students who are educated and trained to meet the needs of the older adult population.”
Cole looks forward to increasing the number of community partnerships and collaborating with other gerontology practitioners and senior service entities.
Nutrition and Hospitality Management
Shaun Riebl, visiting assistant professor, joins the Department of Nutrition and Hospitality Management from recent appointments as clinical research coordinator with Duke University’s School of Medicine and clinical assistant professor with the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. Riebl earned his doctorate in human nutrition, foods and exercise at Virginia Tech.
Riebl’s primary research interest is eating behaviors, with emphasis on disordered eating in athletes. This interest stems in large part from his clinical experience using medical nutrition therapy to address chronic disease, since behaviors around food play a big role in how clinicians manage a disease state with their patients.
Applied Sciences and Institute for Child Nutrition
Although he will not have a faculty role on campus, Heontae Kim, a visiting post-doctoral research associate, will play a very important role in the research the school’s faculty conduct through his role as data analyst and research consultant.
The Institute of Child Nutrition and the School of Applied Sciences will share Kim’s time and expertise.
“ICN has a wealth of data and information that will truly tell the story of the effectiveness of our trainings and resources,” said Aleshia Hall-Campbell, the institute’s executive director. “Having Dr. Kim on board to delve into the data and establish metrics to provide the evidence of our impact is groundbreaking for our organization.
“We’re currently conducting ongoing evaluations and assessments of our training programs, but having an in-house expert to assist with the data analytics and establishment of our research protocols is noteworthy and allows us to expand our evaluation efforts.”
Kim’s research consulting for the last four years at Middle Tennessee State University, where he earned his doctorate in human performance, was focused in kinesmetrics measurement and evaluation.
For more information about the School of Applied Sciences and its programs, visit http://sas.olemiss.edu/ or call 662-915-7900.