HEST faculty honored for excellence in teaching, scholarly activity

Three faculty members from the College of HEST were recognized in 2023 with NMSU’s top honors for excellence in teaching and scholarly activity.

Anna López, an associate professor in the Counseling and Educational Psychology Department and clinical director of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program, received NMSU’s Dennis Darnall Faculty Achievement Award – the highest honor bestowed by NMSU’s provost. López’s research focuses on social justice and advocacy issues in counseling related to undocumented immigrants and their families. Her other research interests include multicultural and bilingual counseling and supervision, body image and eating disorders. 

Marshall Taylor, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, received NMSU’s Early Career Award from the University Research Council. Taylor’s research focuses on questions of cognition and measurement in the sociology of culture. He studies how social contexts and cognitive structures interface to shape cultural knowledge and how to measure cultural knowledge in natural language and survey data.

David LoConto, a professor in the Department of Sociology, received NMSU’s Donald C. Roush Awards for Teaching Excellence from the College of HEST. LoConto teaches courses in popular culture and social theory. His research focuses on social movements and identity within “Star Trek” – an area he explored in a 2020 book, “Social Movements and the Collective Identity of the Star Trek Fandom: Boldly Going Where No Fans Have Gone Before.”