Magazine recognizes four YSU professors

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Four Youngstown State University faculty members were featured in Ohio Magazine’s annual “Excellence in Education” issue, which recognizes outstanding professors at colleges and universities around the state.

YSU honorees were Samuel Adu-Poku, associate art professor; Molly Jameson Cox, assistant psychology professor; Karin Petruska, associate accounting and finance professor; and Ruigang Wang, assistant chemistry professor.

The Excellence in Education section honors college and university faculty members who have demonstrated teaching excellence, participation in professional development activities, interest in students outside the classroom or laboratory and distinction as members of the academic community.

Adu-Poku is coordinator of undergraduate and graduate art education programs in YSU’s Department of Art. His research includes curriculum development, teacher education, gender studies, Africentric studies and critical multiculturalism. He earned his doctorate and master’s degrees in curriculum studies (art education) from the University of British Columbia and the University of New Brunswick, Canada, respectively, and has a bachelor’s degree in teacher education from the University of Science and Technology in Ghana.

Jameson Cox teaches courses in psychology of education, psychology of learning and education, research methods and statistics, cognition/cognition laboratory and psychological measurement in YSU’s Psychology Department.

Her research is focused on math anxiety in children and assessment techniques and methods in K-16 classrooms. She has a doctorate in educational psychology from Ball State University.

Petruska teaches in the Lariccia School of Accounting and Finance, part of YSU’s Williamson College of Business Administration. She is also a certified public accountant and a certified fraud examiner. Petruska earned a doctorate in accounting from Kent State University and has master’s and bachelor’s degrees in accounting from YSU. Her research interests include financial accounting and reporting, international accounting, earnings quality and disclosure, analyst following and forensic accounting.

Wang, who teaches materials chemistry in the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, was awarded a $200,640 National Science Foundation grant this fall to continue his research into improving catalytic-conversion systems in automobiles.

Wang, who joined the YSU faculty in 2010, has a doctorate from Arizona State University and completed postdoctoral studies in the Materials Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.