Miami University Faculty Scholar Awards for 2026 have been presented to Katia Del Rio-Tsonis, professor of Biology, and Ganiva Reyes, associate professor and chair of Teaching, Curriculum, and Educational Inquiry. 

University Faculty Scholar Awards honor faculty whose sustained excellence in research or other creative activity has brought them prominence in their fields.

Miami University Junior Faculty Scholar Awards for 2026 have been presented to: Riley Acton, assistant professor of Economics; Rock Mancini, assistant professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Zachary Soulliard, assistant professor of Psychology; and Jazma Sutton, assistant professor of History.  Read the story. 

Katia Del Rio-Tsonis

Del Rio-Tsonis has consistently been one of the highest-funded and strongest researchers at Miami, according to her nominators.  

Her research has shed light on the molecular processes that underlie tissue regeneration. 

“Specializing in events in the eye, Katia’s lab has made seminal discoveries in lens and retina regeneration,” explained a nominator. Animal models in her lab “are highly specialized, and unique,”  including the embryonic chick and amphibians such as newts, axolotls and frogs. The Spanish newt colony maintained by her lab is the largest such colony in North America, according to a nominator. 

Since joining Miami in 1999, her work has been supported by more than $9.7 million in research funding. This includes two active R01 grants and an active R21 grant from the National Institutes of Health through the National Eye Institute and the National Institute of Aging.

She has also received more than $220,000 in  faculty-sponsored grants, and more than $400,000 in internal grants, over the past  four years. 

Del Rio-Tsonis has published “an extraordinarily impressive 82 publications,” according to her nominators, including those in high-impact publications such as Nature, Genes, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. These publications feature graduate students as first authors or co-authors (49%), or undergraduate students as co-authors (23%). She has also published 11 book chapters and electronic reviews.

Recognized for her excellence in research by peers in her field, she has been selected to serve as organizer, co-organizer, or co-director of nearly 10 scientific organizations. These include the Salamander League  Seminar Series, and the Retinal Cell Biology Section for the XXVI International Congress of Eye Research, among eight others. 

She serves on four editorial boards including Current Neurovascular Research,  AI-Transactions on Bioengineering & Bioinformatics, Genes, and Differentiation. 

Her lab’s resources and expertise “provide outstanding opportunities to the field of tissue regeneration,” a nominator said, and “provide outstanding training opportunities for Miami University undergraduate and graduate students. Led by Katia, the Del Rio-Tsonis Lab research team clearly prioritizes student success in their endeavors and this has played a positive role in the successes seen for the lab.”

She has  served or is currently serving as the mentor to sixteen graduate students, three postdoctoral research scholars, and two research associates. These students have gone on to prestigious postdoctoral positions including Johns Hopkins University and the National  Institutes  of Health, and to faculty  positions  at  the  University  of  Michigan and the University of Colorado  and other institutions. 

She has  served  as  the  research  advisor  for more than 125  undergraduate  students. 

Del Rio-Tsonis has taken opportunities to serve students from all backgrounds “in an effort to ensure that all students have access to high-caliber research opportunities,” according to a nominator. This service is in addition to the many service roles she takes on within the Department of Biology and the College of Arts and Science. 

“Taken together, the efforts of Katia at Miami have been extraordinary. These efforts span the  classroom and the laboratory and come at great service to students and colleagues across the university,” the nominator said. 

She received her Ph.D. in 1996 from the National University of Mexico and was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Dayton from 1996-1999. 

Ganiva Reyes

Reyes is a leading scholar of social justice in education, with a focus on gender and sexuality, Latinx curriculum, and critical theories of care. Her research explores how historically marginalized communities within the U.S. education system can be better served.

A nominator said Reyes is “widely respected for her ability to take the complexities of human relationships in schools — particularly for those at the intersections of race, class, gender, and language — and make them legible in ways that change how researchers, educators, and communities understand teaching and learning.” 

Her original theories of care have been used for on-the-ground work with pre-service and early career teachers in southwest Ohio.

She has secured $138,000 in external grant funding as either PI or Co-PI and has been invited to speak at international conferences such as the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and American Educational Studies Association (AESA). A nominator said these invitations demonstrate “the field’s sustained interest in her work.” 

Reyes has authored 30 publications, including 21 peer-reviewed articles in renowned and competitive journals such as the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education; Critical Studies in Education; Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies; and Urban Education. 

Among these publications are three encyclopedia articles, four book chapters, and two scholarly book reviews. The encyclopedia that features Reyes’s articles won two book awards in 2022 and 2023. 

Reyes has also received multiple awards for her scholarship, including the Distinguished Achievement in Teacher Education award from the Ohio Association of Colleges for Teacher Education in 2025 and the American Association of Teaching and Curriculum (AATC) Francis P. Hunkins Distinguished Article Award in 2022 for her article on how gendered classroom dynamics can shape teacher-student connections.

Another nominator highlighted Reyes's role as a mentor to graduate students, noting her ability to offer clarity, encouragement, and guidance to emerging scholars.

In addition to her work as a scholar and mentor, Reyes currently serves as chair of the Critical Issues in Curriculum and Cultural Studies Special Interest Group of AERA and as an editorial board member for of major peer-reviewed journals in the education field, including The Review of Educational Research; Diaspora, Indigenous and Minority Education; and Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice.

“Reyes’s research, teaching, mentorship, and leadership make her one of the most influential scholars of her generation. She is an innovative thinker, a generous collaborator, a feminist intellectual leader, and a transformative presence,” said one of her nominators. “Her work is reshaping how we think about care, identity, equity, and curriculum, and her impact is already being felt nationally and internationally.”  

She received her Ph.D. in 2016 from the University of Texas at Austin and joined Miami in 2016 as the Heanon Wilkins visiting assistant professor before becoming an assistant professor in 2017. She currently serves as chair for the Department of Teaching, Curriculum, and Educational Inquiry.