2 Wittenberg professors awarded fellowship to engage 'Christian thought and practice with academic vocation'

Brooke Spurlock, Springfield News-Sun, Ohio
·2 min read

Mar. 29—Two Wittenberg University professors were awarded fellowships to "engage the intersections of Christian thought and practice with the academic vocation."

Danny Marous, associate professor of chemistry, and Michael Daiga, associate professor of education, were awarded Lilly Faculty Fellowships through the Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities.

"This is an impressive honor," said Provost Brian Yontz. "Over the next few years, Danny and Mike will be engaging in professional development, study, and then implementing a Lilly Faculty Fellows program on our campus. I'm proud of these two award-winning teachers' commitment to their vocation and their willingness to wrestle with big questions, and I am confident that the result will further enhance Wittenberg's teaching excellence."

Marous and Daiga will share a $16,000 award that will include $8,000 in start-up funding to launch a faculty-development campus project for the two-year program, and a $4,000 honorarium for participation. They will also attend four conferences in Indianapolis and Chicago between June and June 2026.

Marous and Daiga will be part of the fourth cohort of the Lilly Network's newest initiative, the Lilly Faculty Fellows Program for mid-career faculty leaders across the disciplines. Six teams of two Fellows each from network schools were chosen from 16 teams who applied for the six spots. They are Hope College in Holland, Michigan; Johnson University in Knox County, Tennessee; Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland; Providence College in Rhode Island; Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington; and Wittenberg.

The team will be led by Laura Yoder, professor of nursing and program director for nursing at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Alison Noble, interim provost and professor of chemistry at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

Marous, of Springfield, is a 2009 Wittenberg graduate, earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 2015, did postdoc work at the University of Notre Dame and joined the university in 2017 where he is the director of the university's biochemistry/molecular biology program. His research interests revolve around bacterial resistance to antibiotics, and his class offerings include chemistry for health sciences, organic chemistry, principles of biochemistry and molecular toxicology.

Daiga, of Bellbrook, earned his bachelor's degree in actuarial science from Purdue University, a master's degree in teacher education from Oakland City University, his Ph.D. in mathematics education from Indiana University. taught secondary mathematics and business coursework for eight years and joined the university's Department of Education in 2017 where he teaches coursework topics that focus on mathematics, mathematical methods and statistics education. His primary research interest focuses on mathematics education, specifically looking at teacher's statistical knowledge in graphical representations.