Class of 2021-22

Pam received a B.S. from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Maryland. She was a National Research Council Fellow at the EPA from 1999-2000. Since joining UWF in 2006, Benz served in various leadership roles, including founding the Office of Undergraduate Research in 2010. In addition to teaching, she supervises undergraduate research in the area of aquatic photo-chemistry examining environmental impacts of toxic contaminates. Benz is serving as PI on a Department of Education, Title III grant ($3 million) and as Director of the UWF STEM Success Program.

David’s interest in popular culture and book collecting led him to examine the history of mass circulation magazines, especially the pulp paper magazines of the 20th century. He utilized this research to write the books Recovering Modernism: Pulps, Paperbacks, and the Prejudice of Form and All Man!: Hemingway, 1950s, Men’s Magazines, and the Masculine Persona. In 2010, he received national and international acclaim for his book on Hemingway and men’s magazines. He is currently working on a history of the cocktail book and a collection of the flapper fiction of Dawn Powell.

Keri served as a special educator in Tampa Bay area elementary and middle schools prior to joining UWF. Previously a television news producer and journalist, she switched careers after her second of three children struggled academically with a learning disability, when she returned to school to earn a master’s degree and doctorate degree in special education from the University of South Florida. Keri’s research interests include parent-school relationships in special education, school-university partnerships, and special education pre-service teacher preparation.

James joined UWF in 2017. His main research interest is consumer emotion and memory. He earned a PhD from the University of Kentucky in 2015 and holds an MBA from Rollins College and a BSBA from the University of Central Florida. Before returning to school to complete his PhD, Mead spent four years in corporate marketing research. In this role, he served as the senior research analyst for branding, new product development, television programming, advertising analytics, B2B, and customer experience, providing data driven strategic recommendation to top management.

Jamin is currently leading two digitization projects through the UWF Digital Humanities Lab, which he established in 2018. Wells' first book, Shipwrecked: Coastal Disasters and the Making of the American Beach, will be published in December 2020. His current research explores the intersection of place, power, and memory in post-Civil War Pensacola.