SOURCE Mentor Profiles

Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geography, Geological Sciences, Primate Behavior & Ecology, Craft Brewing

Lori Sheeran (she/her), SheeranL@cwu.edu (Updated 1/27/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: Primate Behavior & Ecology
• Research Interests: primate conservation outreach
• Active Projects: I have no active projects and am ready to brainstorm!

Jessica Mayhew, MayhewJ@cwu.edu (Updated 1/27/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: Primate Behavior & Ecology, Anthropology and Museum Studies
• Research Interests: Primate Behavior, Animal Welfare, Conservation, Biological Anthropology
• Active Projects: I have no active projects but do have project ideas/plans.

Erin Craig (she/her), erin.craig@cwu.edu (Updated 3/11/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: Physics, Biophysics, STEM Education, Students from any department interested in these areas are welcome to contact me to find out if I would be a good fit to be your mentor, or if I can connect you with someone who is.
• Research Interests: Physics, Biophysics, Biology, nervous system, neurons, STEM, STEM education
• Active Projects: Read more about current projects in the Computational Biophysics lab webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/cwu-computational-biophysics/home To learn about other research opportunities in the Physics Department: https://www.cwu.edu/academics/physics/student-resources/research-areas.php

Dakota Hogan (she/her), Dakota.hogan@cwu.edu (Updated 2/19/2026)

• Mentoring Departments: Anthropology, Primate Behavior
• Research Interests: Biological Anthropology, Primate Behavior and Cognition, Primate Conservation, Captive Care and Enrichment for Primates
• Active Projects: I have no active projects and am ready to brainstorm!

Daniel Cox (He/They/Them), Daniel.Cox@cwu.edu (Updated 2/20/2026)

• Research Interests: Medicine, health, engineering, biological sciences, disease, public health, Latinx
• Please see “Health Sciences” under CEPS for more details.

Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, Law and Justice, CERM, Environmental Studies

Griff Tester, Griff.Tester@cwu.edu (Updated 11/27/2024)

• Mentoring Departments: Sociology; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS)
• Research Interests: Gender, Aging, Social Support
• Active Projects: TransRural Lives: an interdisciplinary, community based digital storytelling project documenting and celebrating the lives of transgender, Two Spirit, and gender diverse older adults in rural areas and small towns in the Pacific Northwest.

Amy Claridge (she/her/hers), Amy.Claridge@cwu.edu (Updated 1/27/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: Child Development and Family Science; Psychology; Public Health; Education; Sociology; Social Services; Law and Justice; Any others where we have a shared research interest
• Please see “Family & Consumer Sciences” under CEPS for more details.

Jessica Mayhew, MayhewJ@cwu.edu (Updated 1/27/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: Primate Behavior & Ecology, Anthropology and Museum Studies
• Please see “Natural Sciences” under COTS for more details.

Toni Sipic, Sipict@cwu.edu (Updated 2/28/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: Economics, CERM, Public Policy, Business Analytics
• Please see “Economics” under CB for more details.

• Mentoring Departments: University Police & Public Safety (Office of Emergency Management)
• Please see “Engineering Technologies, Safety, & Construction” under CEPS for mre details

Dakota Hogan (she/her), Dakota.hogan@cwu.edu (Updated 2/19/2026)

• Mentoring Departments: Anthropology, Primate Behavior
• Please see “Natural Sciences” under COTS for more details.

Computer Science, Mathematics

Razvan Andonie, andonie@cwu.edu (Updated 11/27/2024)

• Mentoring Departments: Computer Science
• Research Interests: Neural Networks, Deep Learning, Visual Knowledge Discovery, Causal Machine Learning, Large Language Models, Generative AI, Computational Semiotics, Concept Drift, Synthetic Data Generation, Hyperparameter Optimization, Quantum Machine Learning.
• Active Projects: https://sites.google.com/view/razvan-andonie/student-research-projects

Boris Kovalerchuk, BorisK@cwu.edu (Updated 1/27/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: Computer Science
• Research Interests: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Visual Knowledge Discovery
• Active Projects: I do have active projects.

ITM; Engineering, Safety, & Construction

George Long, George.Long@cwu.edu (Updated 11/27/24)

• Mentoring Departments: Engineering Technologies, Safety, and Construction (ETSC); Information Technology Management (ITM)
• Research Interests: Emergency Preparedness, Emergency Communications
• Active Projects: I have no active projects but do have project ideas/plans.

Jennifer Serne (she/her/hers), Jennifer.Serne@cwu.edu (Updated 12/6/2024)

• Mentoring Departments: Engineering Technologies, Safety, and Construction (ETSC), but willing to mentor students from any department or program if they are interested in researching topic related to my expertise.
• Research Interests: Storytelling, Cognitive Bias, Worker Health and Safety, Aviation Safety, Construction Safety, Human Factors, Human and Organizational Learning
• Active Projects: I have no active projects but do have project ideas/plans.

• Mentoring Departments: University Police & Public Safety (Office of Emergency Management)
• Research Interests: Emergency Management and Social Media
• Active Projects: I have no active projects and am ready to brainstorm!

Upakar Bhatta (he/him/his), Upakar.Bhatta@cwu.edu (Updated 12/10/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: Information Technology Management (ITM)
• Research Interests: Cybersecurity, Cloud and ML
• Active Projects: I have no active projects but do have project ideas/plans. Please reach out if you would like to get involved in cloud, data, and AI governance research area.

Daniel Cox (He/They/Them), Daniel.Cox@cwu.edu (Updated 2/20/2026)

• Research Interests: Medicine, health, engineering, biological sciences, disease, public health, Latinx
• Please see “Health Sciences” under CEPS for more details.

Apparel, Textiles and Merchandising; Child Development & Family Science; Hospitality, Tourism & Event Management

Amy Claridge (she/her/hers), Amy.Claridge@cwu.edu (Updated 1/27/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: Child Development and Family Science; Psychology; Public Health; Education; Sociology; Social Services; Law and Justice; Any others where we have a shared research interest
• Research Interests: Family Stress and Resilience; Transition to Parenthood; Unintended Pregnancy; Coparenting; Maternal Mental Health; Child Development
• Active Projects:
  • Maternal Mental Health in the Transition to Parenthood: This is a longitudinal mixed-method study where we have collected data from women beginning in the pandemic and are continuing to monitor their well-being. We have a lot of data that is yet to be analyzed, and opportunities for assisting in ongoing data collection also.
  • Cross-national Examination of Families' Experiences in the United States and Finland: This project involves three qualitative studies that compare experiences of families in the US to those of families in Finland. There are opportunities to help conduct interviews and analyze data in the coming months.
  • Parents' and Siblings' Experiences Following the Death of a Child in their Family: This is a qualitative study where we talked to parents and siblings about their experiences. We have finished data collection and have rich data that could be used for a student project.
  • Please feel free to reach out to discuss possibilities for collaboration. I'm open to students joining existing projects or working with students on new projects that fall within some area of my expertise.

Public Health, Paramedicine, Nutrition, Sport & Movement

Ana Freire, Ana.Freire@cwu.edu (Updated 11/27/2024)

• Mentoring Departments: Health Sciences 
• Research Interests: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease; Methodological studies, Physiotherapy, Exercise 
• Active Projects: I have ongoing projects evaluating different aspects of chronic respiratory diseases and genetic conditions affecting respiratory and cardiovascular systems. 

Tafere Belay (he/him/his), tafere.belay@cwu.edu (Updated 3/11/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: Health Sciences, Science
• Research Interests: NHANES dataset
• Active Projects: I have no active projects but do have project ideas/plans.

Robert Pritchett, pritchettr@cwu.edu (Updated 2/19/2026)

• Mentoring Departments: Health Sciences
• Research Interests: Environmental Physiology, Human Performance
• Active Projects: Running Economy and Muscle Damage

Daniel Cox (He/They/Them), Daniel.Cox@cwu.edu (Updated 2/20/2026)

• Mentoring Departments: I participated in Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs during my undergraduate university study, and I was a mentor for high school science students doing science research with Georgia Tech in the past.
• I work as a nurse practitioner in the student health center. Outside of my degrees for nursing & nurse practitioner, my undergraduate degree was Biomedical Engineering, my master's was in microbiology. I used to work as a high school science teacher and as a medical researcher with the NIH. I would be open to things related to medicine, health, engineering, biology or other biological sciences, disease, public health, and possibly something else if I could be helpful to a student.
• I have been involved with organizations including Teach for America, NIH, CHCI, NAHN, SHPE, University of Missouri, Sigma Theta Tau Alpha Epsilon Honor societies, and Emory University if that is relevant to any student's interests or pursuits.
• Research Interests: Medicine, health, engineering, biological sciences, disease, public health, Latinx
• Active Projects: I have no active projects but do have project ideas/plans.

Education

Erin Craig (she/her), erin.craig@cwu.edu (Updated 3/11/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: Physics, Biophysics, STEM Education, Students from any department interested in these areas are welcome to contact me to find out if I would be a good fit to be your mentor, or if I can connect you with someone who is.
• Please see “Natural Sciences” under COTS for more details.

A&D, Film, Music, Theatre Arts

Jakub Rojek (he), jakub.rojek@cwu.edu (Updated 12/10/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: College of Arts & Humanities
• Research Interests: non-idiomatic improvisation, cross-over piano techniques and piano pedagogy
• Active Projects:
  • Enhancing Music Education by Connecting Improvisation and Composition: The purpose of the research study is to enhance the study of music education by creating a method of musical improvisation designed for musicians in general, specifically those who lack specific training in genres typically associated with the art of improvisation. In doing so, it aims to allow musicians to feel the freedom to pursue various directions in their music. The entire notion of music education is redefined, as this research proposes a new, progressive approach to studying improvisation, and thus, music in general. Studying improvisation without a notion of preexisting vernacular opens up new avenues for pedagogical approaches that combine the study of music composition and improvisation, making the act of improvisation less esoteric and more inclusive and transparent. Ultimately, I hope to establish the study of improvisation as one of the major pillars of music education, one that can enhance students’ creativity beyond the boundaries of a specific medium.
  • I am especially interested in multidisciplinary project involving visual artists, dancers, film makers. I have done few of these in the past and could have a valuable insights for students participating in such projects. Any opportunity for cross-pollination of any kind is a desideratum per se. My current presentation explores improvisation as a science rather than an art form and delves into intersection of improvisation, quantum physics and entropy to name a few.

English, History, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Communication, World Languages and Cultures

Ali Unal, Ali.Unal@cwu.edu (Updated 11/27/2024)

• Mentoring Departments: English (Creative Writing only) 
• Research Interests: Fiction writing 
• Active Projects: None, come with ideas to brainstorm! 

Dan Martin (He/Him), paul.martin@cwu.edu (Updated 12/10/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: English, Education, History, Communication, Background in writing across disciplines and writing program administration so can mentor students across a wide range of disciplinary writing projects. I teach writing in the sciences and can mentor students working on certain types of science projects.
• Research Interests: Feedback on writing; the history of teaching writing and writing technologies; how disinformation is created and circulated on digital platforms. Pedagogies, Digital and Multimodal Projects Research, Writing Research, Assessment, Feedback Studies
• Active Projects:
  • I have several active projects. I am currently studying how disinformation is designed and networked across media platforms like podcasts.
  • I am also studying the directed self-placement tool I made for CWU for placing students into writing classes. I have an IRB open for this study, and I have been interviewing and surveying students across campus for the past year. There are numerous roles research assistants could serve for these projects. 1) Collecting data on disinformation in digital platforms; 2) coding data; 3) conducting and transcribing interviews; 4) designing graphs and charts; 5) reviewing survey data.

Accounting, Business Administration, Economics

Toni Sipic, Spict@cwu.edu (Updated 2/28/2025)

• Mentoring Departments: Economics, CERM, Public Policy, Business Analytics
• Research Interests: Economics, Business Analytics
• Active Projects: None, come with ideas to brainstorm!

Entrepreneurship, Finance & Supply Chain Management, Management & Marketing