EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — Four faculty members in various departments at New Mexico State University received funding for their research projects as part of the college’s Emerging Scholars initiative.
The initiative began in 2016 to “support and promote innovative research efforts of untenured, tenure-track, and research faculty that will advance scientific knowledge or creative works in a specific field or area of professional activity and develop skills to be successful at securing external funding,” according to NMSU.
It also provides financial support for each selected research project, with the condition that the project must be completed within two years.
“This interdisciplinary collection of research, spanning critical practices in AI and athlete leadership dispositions, to partner violence risk assessment for Latino immigrants and motor and cognitive tasks in children with autism spectrum disorder, exemplifies HEST faculty members’ impacts on creating innovative solutions in health, social sciences and education for New Mexico and the Borderlands region,” said College of HEST Dean Rick Marlatt.
The 2025 Emerging Scholars and their projects are the following, according to NMSU:
• Jochebed B. Ade-Oshifogun, associate professor of nursing: The development of a questionnaire to measure intimate partner violence risks among the first-generation Latino immigrant in southern New Mexico.
• Katie Hirsch, assistant professor of kinesiology: Too many cooks in the kitchen? A comparison of preferences for formal and informal athlete leaders.
• Alyssa Olivas Vanderlinden, assistant professor of kinesiology: Investigating motor and cognitive dual tasks in children with autism spectrum disorder.
• Melissa Warr, assistant professor in the School of Teacher Preparation, Administration and Leadership: Empowering educators to challenge inequity through critical AI practices.
“The HEST Emerging Scholar Award provides critical support for our foundational work on developing a culturally and contextually appropriate questionnaire to assess intimate partner violence, or IPV, risk among first-generation Latino immigrants in southern New Mexico,” Ade-Oshifogun said. “This award meaningfully advances an emerging line of research that addresses a gap in mental health and safety screening for a historically underserved population.”
Hirsch said she’s grateful to receive the funding, which will help her lay the foundation for her research program at NMSU.
“As a researcher of sport leadership, I am always looking for ways to better understand followers’ perceptions of their leaders and, in response, how leaders can better serve their followers,” she said. “The findings will be used to inform leadership development training that I hope to be able to share with NMSU sport teams in the future.”
Vanderlinden said the award provides critical support for her project investigating how children with autism adapt their walking patterns to various multi-tasking situations.
“The funding allows us to deepen our understanding of how motor and cognitive resources interact in this population,” Vanderlinden said. “Additionally, it has helped support several undergraduate kinesiology students who are committed to gaining hands-on research experience.”
“The Emerging Scholars program is one of my favorite activities coming from the dean’s office,” Michael Hout, associate dean for research in the College of HEST, said. “Its mission is to support early career investigators in their research efforts, and I have been blown away by the breadth and depth of the work being done by these faculty members. Their work spans education technology, sports psychology, biomechanics and public health, and all projects have very clear societal importance.”
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