College of Science Recognizes Excellence at 2025 Celebration of Success

As one colleague wrote, “Dr. Munshi exemplifies the exceptional promise, creativity, and leadership this award recognizes.”

In just three and a half years at George Mason, Ferah has published ten papers—four led by her graduate students—and secured more than $1.2 million in competitive funding, including NSF grants, a NASA Hubble Theory Grant, and the prestigious Simons Emmy Noether Faculty Fellowship. 

Her research on dark matter and galaxy evolution ‘places her at the forefront of her field,’ leveraging supercomputer simulations and data from missions like Hubble and the Dark Energy Survey to inform upcoming observatories such as Rubin and Roman. 

Her mentorship shines as well— advising four PhD students and three undergraduates. One student shared, ‘Thanks to her expertise, I was awarded a NASA FINESST fellowship.’ (valued at $225,000).

Ferah’s leadership is equally impressive. Last year as faculty secretary and now serving as Faculty Chair Pro Tem, ‘she seeks common ground, bringing institutional wisdom and diplomacy to governance.’ At the college level, she stepped up to actively serve on collegewide committees, (dean’s search, workload policy), even provided program funding support.  A nominator explained, Ferah “consistently demonstrated a remarkable ability to identify areas of common interest among diverse stakeholders and keep discussions focused and productive.’ 

John Qu has made impactful contributions to our college, across George Mason, and around the world through his leadership, mentorship, and global research. With more than 25 years of experience, he is a leading expert in remote sensing, climate science, drought monitoring, and clean energy, authoring six books—including Climate Change and a Sustainable Earth, which is used in CLIM 101 classes—and over 150 scholarly publications. Collaborating with WMO, UNEP, and FAO, he works toward sustainable global solutions to the Water–Energy–Food–Health (WEFH) Nexus under climate change, with a special focus on Africa. 

He has served as a WMO task leader, co-chair, and management group member over the past decade. He was also an inaugural Mason Institute for a Sustainable Earth fellow.

A dedicated mentor and educator, John has supervised more than 50 PhD students, ten master’s students, and more than 20 ASSIP interns. He has also organized more than ten UNEP training workshops at Mason, empowering African trainers with advanced Earth observation and GIS technologies while establishing our college and the university as an educational showcase for the United Nations.

John’s commitment to excellence in research, mentorship, and international collaboration exemplifies the mission and values of this Impact Award and strengthens Mason Science’s leadership on the global stage.

As the college’s lead graphic designer, Natasha’s main goal is to direct the college brand's look and feel, admirably and diplomatically implementing new brand standards and processes. With the recently implemented brand and logo guidelines, members of the college community must go through Natasha to help navigate the change while remaining consistent and compliant. Supporting all administration, academic, and research entities, Natasha works with all, providing a keen sense of creativity and attention to deadlines and detail.

For example, instead of slapping a new Mason logo on a tabletop display, Natasha listened to client needs, then elevated the finished product, including tracking mechanisms for our most recent admissions event. According to one nominee, “the associate vice president who oversees admissions personally suggested the university should adopt this exact board design for all majors at the university.” 

Natasha’s demeanor, whether working with colleagues, mentoring peers or student workers, helping lead the college’s Staff Advisory Committee or interfacing with Office of University Branding and vendor representatives, is both welcoming and focused. She asks insightful and thoughtful questions when doing an intake or advocating for broader needs and concerns and is willing to put in the time to help bring the college and the projects she oversees forward. Essential when doing this line of work, she consistently demonstrates how her centricity makes a positive impact for the College of Science.

According to a nominator, Mohammad Nawandish, who joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in summer 2022 as the HR specialist “was instrumental in the recruitment of our recent tenure-track faculty hire,” insuring “we adhered to the latest regulations and facilitating communications between our search committee and HR. Mohammad “consistently explores opportunities to improve efficiency, following up with students and faculty to ensure deadlines are not missed. And to help reduce paperwork and improve transparency, working with the college’s administrative assessment team, he proposed an efficiency tool currently being considered.” 

His attentiveness to our students is greatly appreciated. For example, the program hires dozens of GTAs each year and new rules stipulated that course assignments needed to be explicitly listed on their contracts as well as inclusion of new language. Through multiple rounds and in real time, Mohammad ensured all contracts were completed accurately and on time. He also navigated a complex situation when several students could not sign up for health insurance. Working with central HR, health insurance for all team members was secured. And Mohammad’s attention to detail consistently ensures international students are timely completing immigration paperwork. 

Brooke Vaughn exemplifies this honor through her extraordinary dedication, compassion, and tireless commitment to students’ well-being and success. Per her nominators, Brooke is the essential point person for all academic matters relating to registration and progression for our students. She went above and beyond when several graduate research assistants experienced paperwork delays which left them without pay or health insurance. She took it upon herself to identify and correct the errors, working with multiple offices until every student was paid and their benefits restored. Her initiative prevented significant hardship and demonstrated remarkable care for our students.

Always friendly in her delivery, Brooke follows through to make certain tasks have been completed, yet her impact extends far beyond administrative work. She regularly designs creative flyers for student presentations and helps students with résumés and websites. When one student broke her leg, Brooke made a personal gift to lift her spirits—a reflection of her empathy and kindness. 

Equally important, Brooke strengthens the department’s overall sense of community. She bakes homemade treats, plans social events like the annual Halloween party, bringing all the food and cleaning up afterward. And Mondays are made sweeter with doughnuts; a tradition Brooke has brought to second floor Planetary Hall.

Through her professionalism, warmth, and advocacy, Brooke has become an indispensable part of the department and a true champion for students. She fully embodies the values of community and excellence this award seeks to recognize.

Timothee Bryan engages in course development efforts and multiple math education initiatives including collaborations with other universities demonstrating a commitment to elevating both student and instructor success.

His colleagues affirm, “Tim promotes the high standards for teaching and learning while creating a supportive and student-focused atmosphere.” His “pedagogical innovation,” including active learning and oral exams, is reflected in student and peer evaluations consistently describing him as “respectful, engaging, and an excellent communicator in conveying concepts.”

In addition to teaching hundreds of undergraduate students each year, as inaugural GTA Coordinator, Tim spearheads graduate teaching assistant (GTA) training, serving as a mentor for all math GTAs. With more than 40 full-time PhD students, this graduate program is the highest ranked in the College of Science according to the latest US News report. (Just years ago, the program had been unranked with 11 full-time PhD students). This rapid growth in numbers and recognition would have been impossible without Tim’s herculean efforts and creative ideas. He “observes 30-35 recitation sessions each semester” providing individualized mentorship that has “significantly improved the quality of instruction.” His work developing and implementing the Program for Advanced Teaching of Mathematics (PATMath) has been transformative; this “year-long program… trains GTAs in advanced instructional techniques” and has strengthened mathematics instruction for thousands of students. His “brilliance, creativity, commitment to excellence… and impeccable work ethic” have had impact far beyond the department.

Nominators said Megan Erb is an extraordinary leader, mentor, and colleague with well-honed organizational skills whose impact is felt across the department, the college, and the university. Since joining Mason in 2013, she has become “an invaluable asset to our program,” guiding us through three separate chairs, ensuring every transition is smooth. Faculty consistently note “students and faculty recognize her as both caring and competent,” and that her mentorship “goes far beyond official assignments.”

Megan plays a central role in supporting faculty development. She “mentors each adjunct professor,” schedules “teaching evaluations for all assistant professors,” and provides guidance colleagues describe as “pivotal” to their success. She also supports graduate teaching, planning leading annual GTA training sessions, assigning sections thoughtfully, even recently adding an invaluable microteaching component.

Her dedication to students is equally profound; she “writes 20–30 recommendation letters annually,” advises undergraduates, mentors learning assistants, and ensures instructional quality through continuous feedback loops. As colleagues affirm, “You would be hard pressed to find a student or faculty member… who had not been impacted by Megan’s wealth of knowledge and dedication.”

An essential proposal submission management administrative staffer, Kristine Crassweller moved into the college in 2022, after previously working with the college through George Mason’s Office of Sponsored Programs. 

To understand the extent of her impact, first look at proposal dollar values she has supported: total value of proposals from 2022-2025: $193.8 Million dollars over 507 proposals: In 2025 alone, ~$17.5 M total value and about 77 proposals to date. 

Now consider Kristine supports up to 45 faculty at any given time, across 9 different departments and centers, and works closely with a team of four other pre-award administrators. Serving as point of contact for any matters specific to her dept/centers on any pre-award, including proposal, budget, revisions and sponsor forms, she provides an expansive level of support across the college’s departments and centers.

A colleague noted, “How a person chooses to personally improve says a lot about how they take responsibility for the services they provide to the people who rely on their high caliber work. Professional improvement by expanding personal qualifications is an important indicator of how much the employee values their job and service to the organization.” This June, Kristine became a fully Certified Research Administrator (CRA) accredited by the research administrators certification council (RACC).  The nomination further states, “Kristine deserves this award because of her approach of putting people first, providing timely and rigorous support to several investigators such that we can continue to keep our efforts towards maintaining the College of Science R&D portfolio strong.”

Konrad Wessels is tackling one of humanity's most urgent challenges: helping society respond to climate change through better Earth monitoring technology. His work focuses on drylands—vast, water-limited ecosystems covering 41 percent of Earth's land surface that support 2.7 billion of the world's most climate-vulnerable people. These critical landscapes have been notoriously difficult to measure from space due to their sparse, patchy vegetation, leaving scientists unable to accurately track changes in carbon storage, vegetation health, and ecosystem responses to drought and fire. Wessels has pioneered innovative methods, combining satellite laser systems, radar, and artificial intelligence, to finally unlock reliable measurements of these ecosystems, with profound implications for climate action, conservation strategies, and human livelihoods. 

What truly distinguishes Kondrad is his leadership in shaping the future of Earth observation itself. Beyond his groundbreaking research discoveries, including surprising findings about how elephant populations affect carbon storage in African conservation areas, he has taken on the high-risk, high-reward challenge of helping design NASA's next generation of Earth-monitoring satellites and research programs. He spent 18 months leading the strategy for NASA's Adaptation and Response in Drylands (ARID) field campaign, coordinating an international scientific network to create a comprehensive research agenda that NASA has now committed to funding. Through these ambitious initiatives, Konrad is literally helping determine how humanity will monitor and understand environmental change for decades to come. His vision, persistence, and dedication to solving problems that matter for our planet's future make Konrad Wessels an exemplary Dean's Big Challenge Award recipient.