Dr. Andrew P. Yox – Honors Director. Received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and was the founding Honors Director here at NTCC in 2007. He was the winner of the $5,000 Mary Jon, and J. P. Bryan Leadership in Education Award in 2016, the 2003 Webb-Smith Essay Award for his essay on German-American Poetry, and the 2012 David C. Deboe Award for his leadership of NTCC’s Walter Webb Society. Yox teaches the first-semester Texas History portion of the Bio-Tex Seminar.
Dr. Andrew Daniel – Honors Seminar Professor. Received his D.M.A. from the University of North Texas. After completing his Master of Music degree from the University of Southern California, and named a Fulbright Scholar, he was offered a European tour under the auspices of the Andres Segovia Institute. Daniel teaches the Music portion of the HuMusic Honors Seminar. Two of his seminar students have recently won Boe Awards of the Great Plains Honors Council for their essays involving music.
Dr. Melissa Fulgham – Honors Seminar Professor. Received her Ph.D. from Texas A & M University. Fulgham is the Division Chair for the Humanities & Social Sciences Department. Recipient of the Mary Jon and J.P. Bryan Leadership in Education Award, Mosal Award and McDonald’s Excellence in Teaching Award, she has multiple Phi Theta Kappa advisor awards. With 21 published articles and books, Fulgham scores AP U.S. history exams and U.S. Department of State scholarships. She has served on the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and Phi Theta Kappa’s Honors Program Council. She teaches World History/Humanities in the sophomore-level fall Honors seminar.
Dr. Karyn Skaar – Honors Seminar Professor. Received her M.S. & Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University. She has specialized in behavioral medicine and health psychology. Skaar teaches the Psychology portion of the StatPsych Honors Seminar. In addition to teaching, she serves as the faculty advisor for NTCC Psi Beta and MATD (More Alike than Different).
Dr. Drew Murphy (he/him) graduated with honors from Bradley University in Peoria, IL with a BS degree, double majoring in chemistry and biochemistry. He then attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, earning a PhD in chemistry with an emphasis on organometallic materials chemistry. Additionally, Dr. Murphy has worked as a postdoctoral researcher both at the University of California San Diego studying inorganic materials chemistry and at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, CT, working in biochemistry and cancer biology. Dr. Murphy approaches his chemistry courses with an active learning style. Students work in groups in class solving problems, and they get hands-on chemistry experience in the laboratory under his supervision.
In his spare time, he enjoys watching sci-fi/fantasy television shows, collecting and building Lego models, playing the clarinet, and writing fiction.
Dr. Chris McAllister graduated from High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, and received his B.S. in Biology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He got his M.S. in Biology from Arkansas State University. His Ph.D. was earned from the University of North Texas in Ecology. His doctoral thesis was entitled, “Systematics of Coccidian Parasites (Apicomplexa) from Amphibians and Reptiles in Northcentral Texas”. Dr. McAllister also received a postdoctoral fellowship in Internal Medicine at the VA Medical Center in Dallas where he studied diabetes research.
Chris’ research involves describing new species to science from his work on parasites of vertebrates, primarily fishes, reptiles, and birds. He is the author of over 700 papers in leading scientific journals, including Journal of Parasitology, Acta Parasitologica, Systematic Parasitology, and Folia Parasitologica.
