University Honors Program announces five additions to Honors Faculty Fellow cohort

LAWRENCE — The University Honors Program has welcomed five University of Kansas faculty members to its cohort of Honors Faculty Fellows for fall 2026, increasing its count to 12.

The new fellows add connections to KU’s School of Education & Human Sciences and School of Music, and they provide expertise in areas such as early childhood intervention, emerging technologies and Indigenous communities.

New Honors Faculty Fellows

• Stephen Jackson, associate professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
• Lauren Norman, assistant professor, Department of Anthropology
• Brad Osborn, professor, School of Music 
• Kris Pedersen, clinical professor, Department of Speech-Language-Hearing
• Alejandro David Tamez, assistant research professor, Institute for Information Sciences (I2S). 

Honors Faculty Fellows serve as key members of the program’s intellectual community, most crucially as mentors for the program’s students. This mentorship extends into their involvement in KU Honors’ signature programming, such as Sharing Your Honors Path, at which honors students in their second year present co-curricular posters developed with guidance from Honors Faculty Fellows. 

“Our fellows exemplify the interdisciplinary emphasis of our program, helping our students to make connections beyond their own majors and demonstrating the collaboration that leads to novel solutions and new insights,” said Sarah Crawford-Parker, who is the program’s director. “We are grateful to widen the reach and the depth of knowledge with our newest fellows, who impressed us with their scholarship and commitment to student success.”  

In addition to their mentoring roles, fellows also teach many of the program’s first-year honors seminars, hold positions in committees and working groups that shape program priorities and activities, and serve as ambassadors for the program, participating in recruitment activities across the year. 

Below are bios for each of the five newest fellows, who join six continuing fellows as well as one returning fellow for the fall 2026 semester: 

Stephen Jackson 

Jackson is an associate professor of the historical foundations of education for KU. Previously, he worked in the history department at the University of Sioux Falls for 10 years. His research focuses on the historical connections among education, imperialism and decolonization that continue to affect educational systems today. At KU, Jackson teaches courses on the history of education, and he is currently writing a book on civilizational exceptionalism and world history in American education. 

Lauren Norman 

As an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, Norman studies how small-scale societies, particularly in the Arctic, adapted to environmental and social upheaval over centuries, pairing traditional zooarchaeology with ancient DNA to reconstruct relationships among people, animals and landscape. Much of her fieldwork centers on northern Yukon, Canada, conducted in close partnership with Vuntut Gwitchin communities. She earned her doctorate from the University of Toronto. 

Brad Osborn

A professor of music theory, Osborn explores through his research post-millennial popular music and music videos, applying music-theoretical approaches to artists and genres that challenge conventional musical forms. He is the author of “Everything in its Right Place: Analyzing Radiohead” (Oxford University Press, 2017) and “Interpreting Music Video: Popular Music in the Post-MTV Era” (Routledge, 2021). He is also co-author of the sixth edition of “American Popular Music” (Oxford, 2021). His scholarship appears in leading music journals, and he has presented internationally. As a multi-instrumentalist, Osborn composes and records rock music as D’Archipelago. 

Kris Pedersen 

Pedersen, who is the Linda D. Ferrell & Richard C. Tombari Honors Faculty Fellow, is a clinical professor and speech-language pathologist in the Department of Speech-Language-Hearing's Sciences & Disorders Program. Much of her work centers on providing clinical instruction and mentorship to undergraduate and graduate students preparing to work with young children with disabilities. Her professional interests focus on early childhood service provision and policy advocacy aimed at creating more responsive, equitable and inclusive systems. She teaches courses in early childhood intervention and interdisciplinary practices, emphasizing collaborative, family-centered approaches to supporting children and families in home- and community-based settings. 

Alejandro David Tamez  

The honors program’s Donald Crook Honors Faculty Fellow, Tamez an assistant research professor and research program director at the Institute for Information Sciences, where he manages the Center for Cyber-Social Dynamics. As a philosopher, Tamez has published and presented on the impact of emerging technologies on epistemic environments, legal institutions and social norms. Tamez has been a principal investigator or key personnel on National Science Foundation-funded projects developing ethically informed STEM curricula. Beyond academia, Tamez is a board member of the Center for Service Learning, The Commons and the Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities.  

Applications for Honors Faculty Fellows open as roles become available, with fellowships typically offered in the spring semester for terms that begin the following fall. Faculty members interested in becoming an Honors Faculty Fellow can reach out to Crawford-Parker at scrawpar@ku.edu or visit the Honors Faculty Fellows webpage.