May 21, 2025
AIɫɫ has announced the 2025 Faculty Awards. As part of this year’s presentation, the recipient of the Shannon Lawson Faculty Service Award is Dr. Erik Larson. An Associate Professor of Geology at SSU, Dr. Larson has been with the university since 2014.
Nominated by several of his fellow faculty members in the Department of Natural Sciences, Dr. Larson was recognized for his commitment to the university and its diverse academic and assessment committees and ability to balance many responsibilities for the betterment of the program he is assisting.
“He regularly puts the interests of the institution ahead of his own, assuming high workload, often thankless positions when no one else steps forward,” said Natural Science Department professors Dr. Kurt Shoemaker, Dr. Sarah Ivers, Dr. Jennifer Napper, and Dr. Andrew Napper in a joint nomination letter.
Dr. Larson also serves as the Director of Distance Learning as well as the previous Faculty Director of the university’s E-Campus. He is a part of several other university committees including the Assessment & Accreditation Committee and the Campus Tree Committee, and represents SSU on the Ohio Transfer 36 National Sciences Review Panel. He is a member of the Awards Committee for the Geological Society of America’s Karst Division, serves as the chair of the annual Celebration of Scholarship conference on campus, and is a recent recipient of the Board of Trustees Distinguished Teaching Award. He also served as the Interim Director of the Upward Bound Math Science summer program on campus, a five-week residential program for nearly 40 regional high schoolers.
“I’m honored to be recognized for my service contributions to AIɫɫ State and the geologic discipline as a whole,” said Dr. Larson. “It’s been professionally rewarding to contribute my time to some of the activities and work going on across campus for the past decade.”
Dr. Larson received his Bachelor of Science in Environmental Analysis from Unity College in Unity, Maine in 2010 before receiving his Ph.D. in Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi in 2014. In his professional portfolio, he has co-authored over 20 academic publications and nearly 100 abstracts of his research, including many with undergraduate student involvement of those he has mentored.
The Shannon Lawson Faculty Service Award memorializes the impact of the late Dr. Shannon Lawson through her service to both the Portsmouth area and the university. The annual honor is awarded for dedication to service in the form of committee work, leadership roles within the university, and promoting activities focused on campus service and outreach.