At Willamette, faculty excellence and rigorous scholarship are central to academic life. With summer around the corner, the shift from teaching to fieldwork, data analysis, research, and writing is just beginning.
Willamette professors are scholar-teachers who push the boundaries of knowledge, bringing cutting-edge discoveries directly from the laboratory, library, and field back into the classroom. Faculty research also fuels collaborative research with students, where undergraduates get hands-on research opportunities typically reserved for graduate study. That student research is celebrated each spring at Willamette’s annual Student Scholarship Recognition Day.
To celebrate this ongoing dedication to inquiry and discovery, we look back at a selection of faculty research published over the last year.
Willamette College
Mathematical Insights into Voting and Decision-Making
Mathematics Professors Erin McNicholas and Kathryn Nyman, alongside collaborators Karl-Dieter Crisman and Michael Orrison, were featured in the October 2025 issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, the world's most widely read magazine for professional mathematicians. Their article, “Voting on Relations Using Pairs Information,” applies advanced mathematical tools — such as linear algebra and graph theory — to examine voting and decision-making systems.
Notably, this published project is an extension of earlier research conducted with students through the Willamette Mathematics Consortium for Undergraduate Research, underscoring the university’s dedication to faculty-student collaboration.
Phylogenetics within Camassia: Unlocking Botanical Mysteries
Biology Professor Emeritus Susan R. Kephart co-authored a comprehensive study published in the journal PeerJ examining the complex evolution and difficult taxonomy of the plant genus Camassia (camas). Professor Kephart designed experiments using an advanced DNA analysis tool called RADseq. This high-tech genetic method allowed her team to map out exactly how different populations of camas plants are related to one another.Her research successfully cleared up years of scientific confusion about how to properly categorize these plants and provided critical insights into how geographical, ecological, and reproductive traits drive plant diversification. By clarifying species boundaries, this genomic breakthrough offers vital information for modern ecological conservation, ensuring land managers can utilize locally appropriate plant species in habitat restoration efforts.
Understanding the Wellbeing of Sexual Minority Students
Psychology Professor Courtney Stevens has published a co-authored research paper investigating the psychological wellbeing of sexual minority young adults. Researchers analyzed survey data from 51,713 college students collected during the Spring 2022 National College Health Assessment. To evaluate mental and emotional health, the study used a tool called the Diener Flourishing Scale, which measures factors like having a sense of purpose, feeling supported by others, and practicing self-compassion. The researchers found that, compared to heterosexual students, all sexual minority groups exhibited lower odds of psychological wellbeing. Specifically, bisexual, questioning, and asexual college students reported decreased odds across all measured wellbeing domains, even after adjusting for individual and socioenvironmental characteristics, including mental health experiences. This critical study highlights an urgent need for greater resources to uplift the holistic wellbeing of sexual minority young adults.
School of Law
Psychedelic Renaissance and the Lingering Shadow of Eugenics
In a new essay, Willamette Law Professor Laura Appleman examines the history of psychedelics from the nineteenth century to today, arguing that the revival of psychedelic research and therapy repeats familiar patterns of who gets access and who gets excluded. Appleman explores how the line between “medicine” and “drug” has been used to reinforce social hierarchies, and warns that today’s corporate and tech-driven psychedelic movement risks reproducing those same inequities, under the guise of therapeutic innovation and human optimization.
Atkinson Graduate School of Management
The Consequences of Intergenerational Hypocrisy in Organizations
Professor of Management Kieran O’Connor has published a co-authored research paper exploring the question: When an organization's current actions contradict the values promoted by its past members, the public often views the organization as hypocritical — even if those original promises were made over fifty years ago. Across multiple studies, researchers identified this “intergenerational hypocrisy effect,” finding that these historical inconsistencies damage an organization's reputation, make its actions seem illegitimate, and even inspire public protest. However, organizations can soften this backlash if they can prove their change in behavior was driven by strong moral principles that required a genuine, tangible sacrifice. Ultimately, this research reveals that organizations are held accountable for their past promises far more strictly than previously thought.
Born Global: Reflecting on Three Decades of International Entrepreneurship
International Management Professor Gary Knight and co-authors review decades of scholarship on “born global” firms and international new ventures — innovative startups that expand their operations globally almost immediately after being founded. Marking the anniversaries of foundational studies in the field, the authors examine how international entrepreneurship has evolved since 1994, specifically focusing on the proactive, risk-taking behaviors that allow these companies to thrive. They explore how recent shifts in the global business landscape have impacted these early-internationalizing firms.
Financial Oversight and CEO Accountability in Nonprofit Organizations
Atkinson Graduate School of Management faculty Kawika Pierson, Colin Birkhead, and Debra Jones Ringold co-authored a paper exploring which financial measures are informative of nonprofit executive turnover and compare these results to a similar sample of for-profit firms. Researchers have found that non-profit boards often fall victim to “board capture,” a situation where CEOs keep their jobs despite poor financial performance. Unlike for-profit companies, which quickly hold executives accountable for drops in revenue or profit, the largest nonprofits generally do not base CEO employment on these routine financial changes. This suggests that nonprofit boards provide relatively weak financial supervision until a severe crisis forces their hand — a vulnerability that organizations might solve by financially compensating board members to improve their oversight duties.
Expanding Mental Health Research Through a Marketing Lens
After reviewing over fifty years of business literature, Marketing Professor Jane Machin and her fellow researchers argue that marketing scholars are uniquely positioned to study the well-being of consumers with mental illness outside of traditional medical perspectives. By analyzing more than a thousand peer-reviewed articles, the authors identified significant gaps in our current understanding of how mental health intersects with consumer behavior, market dynamics, and public policy.
Navigating the Turbulent Consumer Journey in Mental Health Treatment
Professor of Marketing Jane Machin co-authored a paper about the journey individuals face when seeking treatment for mental illness, characterizing it as a prolonged, high-stakes process filled with severe uncertainty. When an unexpected mental health crisis strikes, consumers are often overwhelmed and lack the knowledge required to navigate a highly complex and ambiguous healthcare system. By analyzing this experience through a "sensemaking" framework, the study reveals how consumers manage this chaos by cautiously interpreting vague signals, making educated inferences, and taking actions that shape the next phase of their treatment. Ultimately, mapping this unpredictable trajectory provides valuable insights for policymakers and healthcare managers striving to improve patient experiences in high-risk, crisis-driven environments.
Building a Global Brand: How Small Businesses Overcome Expansion Barriers
International Management Professor Gary Knight co-authored a research paper exploring the international expansion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and how they often face significant barriers due to their limited resources and lack of familiarity in foreign markets. To discover how these businesses overcome such obstacles, researchers analyzed Taiwan-based SMEs using a combination of in-depth case studies and extensive survey data. The findings indicate that a proactive entrepreneurial mindset, combined with strong skills in international social media and foreign market knowledge, is essential for developing an effective global branding strategy.
Tools for Understanding Unusual Leaders, Entrepreneurs, and Organizations
Professor of Management Colin Birkhead recently released a new co-authored book, “Managing Outliers and Anomalies.” Companies like Apple and Tesla often capture the attention of researchers because of their unusual success. Unfortunately, many attempts to explain how these companies became exceptional fail to generalize to other companies. This book considers how academics and practitioners can learn from unusual entrepreneurs, leaders, and organizations. They clarify how researchers make sense of extremes — in particular, whether they see them as outliers (extreme cases) or anomalies (extreme events).
