UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO HONORS
MEMBERS OF ITS DISTINGUISHED
FACULTY
2024-25
University Professors
Steber Professors
Herzog Endowed Scholar
Class of 1975 Endowed Professorship
September 10, 2024
THE FALL CONVOCATION OF
THE
FACULTY AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO
September 10, 2024
WELCOME
Gail F. Baker, PhD Senior Vice President and Provost
INVOCATION
Michael Lovette-Colyer, PhD Vice President, Mission Integration
GREETING
Amanda Ruiz, PhD Chair, University Senate Associate Professor of Mathematics, College of Arts and Sciences
PRESENTATION OF AWARDS
James T. Harris III, DEd President
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
James T. Harris III, DEd
THE FALL CONVOCATION OF THE
FACULTY AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO
Today we recognize those who have excelled in academic achievement by awarding them special professorships. The university community is pleased to congratulate these individuals because they represent the core of our mission and the scholarly values we all share.
UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS
University Professors are those who have demonstrated outstanding scholarly achievements in teaching and research supporting the mission and goals of the university.
STEBER PROFESSORS
Steber Professors are recognized for substantial contributions in the areas of teaching, research and service to the university and are limited, by the intent of the donor, Clarence L. Steber, to faculty members in the School of Business Administration and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies.
HERZOG ENDOWED SCHOLAR
The Herzog Endowed Scholar award recognizes meritorious teaching or scholarly productivity and provides funds for professional development or for increased time for research or teaching for a one-year period to School of Law faculty.
CLASS OF 1975 ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIP
The Class of 1975 Endowed Professorship, established by the School of Law’s Class of 1975 as its 25-year reunion gift to the law school, recognizes meritorious teaching, leadership and academic accomplishments of a professor in the School of Law.
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
KATHY K. MARSH, PhD, RN
Kathy Marsh, a professor and associate dean of the Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science, joined the faculty at the University of San Diego in 2010, after spending more than 25 years providing nursing care for patients in intensive care and community settings.
Dr. Marsh specializes in research and scholarship related to adolescents with Type 1 diabetes. Through empirical studies and innovative methodologies, she explores the challenges, coping mechanisms and interventions impacting the mental health and emotional well-being of adolescents. She has a distinguished record of securing grant funding to support her research. Her grants, totaling more than $500,000 dollars, as well as her more than 30 presentations and publications, demonstrate the external recognition of her contributions to the field.
pandemic of the 1980s, when she was an intensive care nurse at a local hospital. The second was the recent global pandemic, known as COVID-19.
Her leadership during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic was particularly valuable to the USD community, where she played a vital role in obtaining and coordinating vaccine administration for the USD community and provided leadership for nursing programs and health care partners throughout the State of California.
Her career has been bookended by two great pandemics. The first was the AIDS
Whether she’s teaching nursing students in the classroom, a simulation lab, a community setting, or as a medical volunteer in rural Haiti, Dr. Marsh inspires the next generation of nurses to make meaningful contributions in patient care. It has been estimated that, by educating future nurses, Dr. Marsh has impacted the care of more than 350,000 patients and families.
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
JOSEPH PROVOST, PhD
Joseph Provost has a long history of contributions to the academic community at USD and beyond — through his leadership, student-centered pedagogy and research on lung cancer.
Professor Provost is deeply committed to advancing education through the integration of essential approaches to pedagogy and has led several initiatives aimed at enhancing student engagement and fostering a culture of active learning. By incorporating hands-on learning experiences and promoting collaborative projects, he ensures that students acquire knowledge while developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills essential for their future careers.
His research has advanced the understanding of how lung cancer cells develop, which makes it possible to identify novel targets for therapy. His collaborative projects resulted in numerous publications and nearly $4.5 million in funding.
Professor Provost has participated in national and international academic forums, contributing his expertise and leadership to shape the broader educational landscape and driving positive change in molecular life science education. He has also engaged more than 170 undergraduates in his research.
In 2022, Professor Provost received the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s Award for Exemplary Contribution to Education, recognizing him as the top biochemistry educator for medical schools, graduate programs, and undergraduate institutions. That same year, Bemidji State University named him a Distinguished Alumni, and he received the Editors Choice Award from the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Chemical Education, for his article on Developing Course Undergraduate Research Experiences.
Professor Provost also has an extended history of service, first in the U.S. Army and the Minnesota National Guard, when he served as the company commander of the 2-136 Mechanized Infantry.
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
DAVID F. PYKE, PhD
David Pyke is the professor of operations and supply chain management at the Knauss School of Business. Professor Pyke, who served as dean of USD’s business school from 2008 to 2015, was previously the professor of operations management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He earned his BA from Haverford College, his MBA from Drexel University, and his MA and PhD from the Wharton School.
His research has focused on inventory models, production planning and scheduling, blockchain, risk management, and global supply chain management. His three books and his more than 45 refereed journal publications have been cited over 10,000 times — 16 of which have more than 100 citations each. The third edition of his book on inventory and production management has nearly 5,000 citations. He serves or has served on several journal editorial boards, including Management Science and Management and Business Review.
At the Knauss School of Business, Professor Pyke teaches courses in operations and supply chain management to undergraduate and MBA students, frequently drawing on his own case studies and consulting experience. He has been voted Professor of the Year or Professor of Impact by graduate students in the KSB seven times since 2018.
Professor Pyke frequently teaches in executive programs, including a program for diverse business enterprises that he developed with the Council for Supplier Diversity in San Diego. He has taught at the International University of Japan, the Helsinki School of Economics and the WHU in Vallendar, Germany. He has consulted for numerous companies, including Solar Turbines, WD-40, Accenture and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
MICHAEL D. RAMSEY, JD
Michael D. Ramsey is Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where he teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, foreign relations law and international law.
He is the author of The Constitution’s Text in Foreign Affairs (Harvard University Press), co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge University Press), and the co-author of two casebooks, Transnational Law and Practice (2nd ed., Aspen) and International Business Transactions: A Problem-Oriented Coursebook (14th ed., West).
He received his Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Dartmouth College and his Juris Doctor summa cum laude from Stanford Law School. Prior to teaching, Professor Ramsey served as a judicial clerk for Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court, and practiced law with the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he specialized in international finance and investment.
His scholarly articles have appeared in publications such as the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Georgetown Law Journal and the American Journal of International Law.
In 2021, he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, and he currently serves as an advisor to the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States.
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
GREG SEVERN, PhD
After completing a thesis in experimental plasma physics in the area of fusion energy, involving the equilibrium and stability of what are called “magnetic mirrors’’ at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he was an appointed assistant professor of physics at the University of San Diego in 1987 and became a full professor in 1994.
His teaching has ranged from courses for students who don’t major in physics, regarding the cultural impacts of the evolution of physics, to what has become the capstone course for the physics major program, which Professor Severn created and developed over time. He has also taught the writing intensive and advanced physics laboratory course, Experiments in Modern Physics.
Professor Severn is quite passionate about undergraduate education and research. His research focus at USD shifted a great deal from his doctoral work on fusion relevant
magnetic plasma confinement schemes, to open questions in lowtemperature plasma physics and on laser-based diagnostics for plasma physics measurements, work more conducive to the environment of a principally undergraduate institution.
His work on both fronts continues to have an international impact. And, while it’s been a great privilege for him to engage with research work on this level, it’s been an even greater privilege for him to mentor undergraduate students — assisting them in envisioning their own careers, providing research experiences for them, giving them opportunities to present their work at national research conferences and even seeing some of them win presentation awards at conferences, such as the National Society for Black Physicists Conference and the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics.
STEBER PROFESSORS
PETER ANTHONY MENA, PhD
Peter Anthony Mena is an associate professor of Theology and Religious Studies. His scholarly work focuses on the histories of Christianity and utilizes critical theories (postcolonial, gender and queer theories, and cultural studies) as approaches to study the past with the goals of considering current political, social, cultural moments. Professor Mena’s first monograph, Place and Identity in the Lives of Antony, Paul, and Mary of Egypt: Desert as Borderland (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), uses the work of Chicana
writer, Gloria Anzaldúa, to consider the descriptions of space and identity in Christian hagiographies from Late Antiquity and is the winner of the Hispanic Theological Initiative's Annual Book Prize (2020). At the University of San Diego, Professor Mena teaches courses in Catholic theology, early Christianities, as well as Latine theologies and Chicane religious identities. His current research is focused on gender, performance and theater in ancient Christian literature.
STEBER PROFESSORS
ALISON SANCHEZ, PhD
Alison Sanchez is an associate professor of economics and business analytics at the University of San Diego’s Knauss School of Business. Her interdisciplinary research combines behavioral economics with techniques and insights from neuroscience, psychology, information theory and machine learning, with a focus on consumer behavior.
A former National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, Professor
Sanchez has collaborated with institutions such as Kaiser Permanente, the UCSD School of Medicine and the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering.
Her research has been published in Economic Inquiry, Journal of Housing Research, International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities and The Permanente Journal. She also currently has other articles under review.
HERZOG ENDOWED SCHOLAR
MIRANDA
PERRY FLEISCHER, JD
Miranda Perry Fleischer is the Richard and Kaye Woltman Professor in Finance and Associate Dean of Faculty at the University of San Diego School of Law.
Professor Fleischer’s research focuses on the interaction of distributive justice and tax policy relating to wealth taxation, charitable giving, and redistribution to the poor. Her book, Universal Basic Income: What Everyone Needs to Know (co-authored with USD Philosophy Professor Matt Zwolinski, PhD) was recently published by Oxford University Press.
Review 1189 (2017); Not So Fast: The Hidden Difficulties of Taxing Wealth, Nomos Wealth Volume (The American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy 2017); Divide and Conquer: Using an Accessions Tax to Combat Dynastic Wealth Transfers, 57 Boston College Law Review 913 (2016); and Equality of Opportunity and the Charitable Tax Subsidies, 91 Boston University Law Review 601 (2011). She is often quoted on National Public Radio and in The New York Times and The Washington Post, among other publications.
Her latest articles include A New Look at Old Money (forthcoming in the University of Southern California Law Review) and A Comprehensive Child Tax Credit (forthcoming in the Tax Law Review). Other representative publications are: The Architecture of a Basic Income, 87 U. Chi. L. Rev. 625 (2020); Atlas Nods: The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income, 2017 Wisconsin Law
Prior to joining USD in 2013, Fleischer taught in various capacities at the University of Colorado Law School, the University of Illinois College of Law and at New York University’s School of Law. At the University of Colorado, she was awarded the 2011 Provost’s Achievement Award, a university-wide award recognizing her scholarly work.
CLASS OF 1975 ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIP
LAURENCE CLAUS, DPhil
Laurence Claus has taught at the law school since 2001. During his tenure, he has taught constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, and contracts and animal law, and writes about public law and legal theory.
During that time, he has consulted for the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative on constitutional reform projects in the Middle East and Africa.
Professor Claus previously served in the United States Department of Justice, Office of Foreign Litigation, and clerked for distinguished judges in both the United States and Australia.
He is a member of the American Law Institute. Among his publications are Law’s Evolution and Human Understanding (Oxford University Press, 2012) and Tyranny of the One, 38 Constitutional Commentary 289 (2023-24).
