Brenner named director of MSU Social Science Research Center

Contact: James Carskadon

STARKVILLE, Miss.—A extensive-serving Mississippi State school member and administrator is now the director of the university’s Social Science Analysis Middle.

Devon Brenner, assistant vice president for outreach and initiatives in the MSU Office of Analysis and Financial Growth, has been named SSRC director. She has led the exploration middle on an interim foundation given that last calendar year. As director, Brenner is charged with leading the in excess of 70-calendar year-aged center with a tradition of impactful social science investigation. The centre studies jointly to the Business office of Research and Financial Progress and the Division of Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine.

“Throughout its heritage, the SSRC has been property to revolutionary interdisciplinary study on the social concerns that impression our state, country and entire world and has served as a key catalyst for escalating the social sciences at MSU,” reported MSU Vice President for Research and Financial Development Julie Jordan. “Dr. Brenner’s breadth of practical experience has her very well positioned to move the middle forward and assist its mission. I appear forward to seeing SSRC continue to mature under her management.”

Brenner has been a portion of the MSU faculty due to the fact 1999, instructing examining and language arts in the Division of Curriculum, Instruction, and Unique Training. She was head of the department from 2011-2015 ahead of serving a single 12 months as an instruction fellow in the business of previous U.S. Senator Thad Cochran. From 2016-2021, she was particular assistant to the vice president for schooling initiatives in the Workplace of Study and Financial Growth, assisting with the setting up and start of Partnership Middle School on the MSU campus.

As a researcher, Brenner has focused on rural teacher recruitment and retention and rural schooling coverage. She is now the principal investigator on a Countrywide Science Foundation-funded collaboration between 14 universities to look at rural teacher schooling and retention, and she not long ago co-authored a textbook on rural teacher education. She is a two-time graduate of Michigan State University, earning a bachelor’s diploma in elementary training in 1991 and a doctorate in curriculum, educating and academic policy in 2000.

“I’m fired up to have this prospect to collaborate with fantastic students who are accomplishing significant perform to assure that facts informs policy and observe in our point out and about the earth,” Brenner reported. “Many many thanks to outgoing director, Dr. Artwork Cosby, who led an incredible staff of scholars for a lot more than half of the SSRC’s 72 many years and who created the infrastructure for demanding, information-pushed interdisciplinary investigation. 

“As I start out my 23rd 12 months at Mississippi Point out University, I’m looking ahead to supporting our present partnerships and tasks and determining new regions for MSU students to perform exploration to have an understanding of and handle social, economic, political, education, and relevant research issues and to deliver a dwelling for exclusive public service plans serving our point out and neighborhood.”

Headquartered in the Thad Cochran Study, Technological know-how and Economic Growth Park at MSU, the SSRC is now household to 12 study laboratories and programs with a broad selection of focuses, together with facts science, gender impacts, messaging, tobacco management, social relations, crime and justice, social robotics and more. Portion of the SSRC mission is to link university social science abilities with funding sources and to offer exclusive investigation alternatives for graduate and undergraduate college students. MSU has led all Southeastern Convention universities in social sciences investigation funding for eight consecutive years and ranks No. 15 nationally in the hottest report from the Countrywide Science Basis.

For additional on the SSRC, take a look at www.ssrc.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s main college, accessible online at www.msstate.edu.