KU professors awarded Big 12 Faculty Fellowships for 2025-2026 academic year
LAWRENCE — Six University of Kansas faculty members have been selected to participate in the Big 12 Faculty Fellowship program during the summer and upcoming academic year. This program allows tenured and tenure-track faculty on the KU Lawrence campus to expand their research connections within the Big 12 Conference. Through the fellowship, faculty may collaborate on projects, consult with faculty and students, offer lectures or symposia, acquire new skills or take advantage of unique archives or laboratory facilities.
The 2025-26 Big 12 Faculty Fellowship recipients:
- Zarko Boskovic, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry
- Francesco Carota, assistant professor of architecture
- Eungsik Kim, assistant professor of economics
- Kelly Kindscher, professor of environmental studies
- Ian Lewis, associate professor of physics & astronomy
- Erik Perrins, University Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
"The Big 12 Faculty Fellowship is a valuable opportunity for faculty to extend beyond their KU community and connect with scholars from across the Big 12 Conference,” said Amy Mendenhall, vice provost for faculty affairs. “This fellowship provides an opportunity through which exciting research collaborations take place, not only enhancing our scholars’ initiatives, but also strengthening our research connections across the Big 12 community.”
About the recipients
Zarko Boskovic
Zarko Boskovic, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry, plans to visit the University of Utah for two weeks during September. There he will work with the Sigman group to develop data-driven models for enantioselective photochemical reactions, building on his lab’s work in developing new photochemical reactions. With the goal of sharing knowledge to create a more streamlined research direction and stronger proposals and publications, Boskovic will be fully immersed in the Sigman lab’s day-to-day functions. Outcomes of the visit will include publications, research proposals and refinement of the department’s graduate student training.
Boskovic joined the KU faculty in 2018.
“The Sigman lab in Utah is paving the way in chemistry through combining data analysis with experimental data derived in the lab. The glue that makes this merger work is the quantum mechanical computations on the chemical structures. These computations are becoming more and more accurate and increasingly easy to perform,” Boskovic said. “It is a wonderful idea to connect faculty from the schools comprising the Big 12 and help them connect in person so they can learn from each other — this fellowship helps us break up research silos.”
Francesco Carota
Francesco Carota, assistant professor of architecture, visited Texas Tech University in May to explore pressing issues in architectural humanities, critical urban studies and special planning, in the context of urban resilience, heritage conservation and global urban transformations. During the visit, Carota gave a presentation for a graduate student engagement session, sharing insights on research methodologies, theoretical contributions and interdisciplinary approaches to urban studies. Through this new research collaboration, Carota plans to co-write research publication, develop a conference presentation and continue collaborations with Texas Tech.
Carota joined the KU faculty in 2023.
“My time at Texas Tech was a truly rewarding experience — it provided an opportunity to engage with faculty and students on urgent questions of urban resilience and global transformation,” Carota said. “Through this experience, I was able to advance a new collaborative research initiative, which we are now developing into a joint Mellon Foundation application. This exchange not only deepened my scholarship but opened exciting new directions for interdisciplinary work in architectural humanities.”
Eungsik Kim
Eungsik Kim, assistant professor of economics, will join faculty and graduate students at Iowa State University for two weeks this fall. This fellowship will enable Kim to expand research projects involving the social security system and intergenerational family transfers in the U.S. during the Great Depression as well as labor market disruptions and compensation schemes under the Pareto criterion. Additionally, Kim will collaborate on a grant proposal for the economics program of the National Science Foundation. During the visit, Kim will also conduct workshops on the computation of multi-period overlapping generation models for Iowa State faculty and students.
Kim joined the KU faculty in 2019.
"I’m particularly excited to collaborate with Iowa State’s faculty on developing a competitive NSF proposal and to contribute to their graduate training by leading workshops on dynamic overlapping generations models — an essential framework for understanding long-run economic policy impacts," Kim said.
Kelly Kindscher
Kelly Kindscher, professor of environmental studies and senior scientist of the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research, will visit the University of Cincinnati during the fall semester to explore the historical ethnobotany resources available at the university’s extensive libraries and herbarium collections. Kindscher plans to study the extent to which native plants, with Native American uses, were incorporated into the medicines of the American economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This exploration will inform a new edition of his 1991 book, “Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie,” to be published by the University Press of Kansas. Additional plans include publishing findings in an academic journal and updating lecture materials for an ethnobotany course. While at Cincinnati, Kindscher will give a lecture to the biological sciences department and be available to guest lecture and work with graduate students.
Kindscher joined the KU faculty in 1992.
“I am pleased to receive this award as this research will highlight the disconnect I have observed between Native American uses of plants as medicine, and more modern medicine’s uses of these plants,” Kindscher said.
Ian Lewis
Ian Lewis, associate professor of physics & astronomy, will join the University of Cincinnati during the spring semester. Lewis will partner with Cincinnati faculty to share his expertise on the physics of particle colliders and the Higgs boson, while learning more from their expertise in how fundamental particles interact to explore new ideas in physics. By interacting daily with the faculty, students and postdoctoral fellows at Cincinnati, Lewis hopes to form new collaborations, research directions and future publications. Lewis plans to bring his research exploration back to KU and include students in the research processes of these new directions.
Lewis joined the KU faculty in 2016.
"I'm excited to be able to visit and collaborate with faculty at the University of Cincinnati. Their expertise in theoretical particle physics is complementary to our group at the University of Kansas,” Lewis said. “This opportunity will allow my team to start new collaborations with experts in the field and push our research in new and exciting directions. The outcome of our research proposal is expected to make an impact in building the scientific case for future particle physics experiments."
Erik Perrins
Erik Perrins, University Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, will travel to Brigham Young University in the fall to advance existing lines of research with long-time collaborators and establish new ones. Perrins will work with BYU faculty and students on a four-year prototyping project for an enhanced aeronautical telemetry system. This effort will lead to a journal manuscript and several conference paper submissions, and their prototype will eventually be demonstrated on a flight test at Edwards Air Force Base. Additionally, in his role as department chair, Perrins will organize a cybersecurity workshop between the KU electrical engineering and computer science department and the BYU electrical and computer engineering department.
Perrins joined the KU faculty in 2005.
“I am honored to have this opportunity, and I am looking forward to a fruitful visit at BYU,” Perrins said. “My BYU collaborators and I have had a productive relationship for the past decade, and I am delighted to have the chance to engage with their students on our current telemetry project. I am also excited to explore ways our departments can strengthen our growing expertise in cybersecurity.”
KU research partnerships
Research partnerships such as the Big 12 Fellowship help advance KU’s research mission and bolster the Kansas economy. In fiscal year 2023, payroll to support research activities combined with research spending, created a net total of $315 million in added income for the state economy.