Wittenberg faculty members Danny Marous, associate professor of chemistry, and Michael Daiga, associate professor of education, have been awarded Lilly Faculty Fellowships through the Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities.
Marous and Daiga will be part of the fourth cohort of the Lilly Network’s newest initiative, the Lilly Faculty Fellows Program for mid-career faculty leaders across the disciplines, to engage the intersections of Christian thought and practice with the academic vocation. Six teams of two Fellows each from network schools were chosen with 16 teams applying for the six spots.
“This is an impressive honor,” said Provost and Professor of Education Brian Yontz. “Over the next few years, Danny and Mike will be engaging in professional development, study, and then implementing a Lilly Faculty Fellows program on our campus. I’m proud of these two award-winning teachers’ commitment to their vocation and their willingness to wrestle with big questions, and I am confident that the result will further enhance Wittenberg’s teaching excellence.”
Marous and Daiga will share a $16,000 award that will include $8,000 in start-up funding to launch a faculty-development campus project for the two-year program, as well as a $4,000 honorarium for participation. They will also attend four conferences in Indianapolis and Chicago between June of this year and June of 2026.
Their cohort is made up of six teams from Hope College in Holland, Michigan; Johnson University in Knox County, Tennessee; Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland; Providence College in Rhode Island; Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington; and Wittenberg University. The team will be led by Laura Yoder, professor of nursing and program director for nursing at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and Alison Noble, interim provost and professor of chemistry at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
Marous, a 2009 graduate of Wittenberg, joined the staff in 2017. Currently the director of Wittenberg’s biochemistry/molecular biology program, he earned his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 2015 and did postdoc work at the University of Notre Dame before coming back to Wittenberg. His research interests revolve around bacterial resistance to antibiotics.
His class offerings include chemistry for health sciences, organic chemistry, principles of biochemistry, and molecular toxicology. Marous and his students have presented research at regional and national conferences, including the American Chemical Society National Meeting and the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE). He resides in Springfield, Ohio, with his family.
Daiga joined Wittenberg’s Department of Education in August 2017. His primary research interest focuses on mathematics education, specifically looking at teacher’s statistical knowledge in graphical representations. He currently teaches coursework topics that focus on mathematics, mathematical methods, and statistics education.
Before coming to Wittenberg, Daiga taught secondary mathematics and business coursework for eight years. He earned his bachelor’s degree in actuarial science from Purdue University, a master’s degree in teacher education from Oakland City University, and his Ph.D. in mathematics education from Indiana University. A faculty representative of Athletes in Action for the University, Daiga lives in Bellbrook with his family.
According to its website, the Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities (formerly the Lilly Fellows Program) was founded in 1991 and funds several special projects for network institutions and awards prizes. Developed by the Lilly Fellows Program (LFP) in cooperation with the National Network Board, these projects are intended to advance the overall mission of the program and to increase the participation of network institutions in the activities and formative experiences of the LFP. These projects are held at LFP Network colleges and universities and are organized by faculty and/or administrators from the host institutions.
The program seeks to strengthen the quality and shape the character of church-related institutions of higher learning in the twenty-first century. The Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities represents among its current membership of 100 schools a diversity of denominational traditions, institutional types, and geographical locations and is based at Christ College, the interdisciplinary honors college of Valparaiso University in Northwest Indiana.
