Akshay Sood is a tenured Professor and the founding Miners’ Colfax Medical Center Endowed Chair at the University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine. Dr. Sood received his postdoctoral fellowship in Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. He is currently the Assistant Dean of Mentoring and Faculty Retention at the University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine.
Dr. Sood’s research has focused on non-smoking host risk factors for obstructive lung diseases, including inhalational dust exposure. He has received funding for K-23 and P50 grants by the NHLBI, R01 grant by the AHRQ, R13 grant by the NIEHS, UL1 grant by the NCATS, Pipeline to Proposal grants by PCORI and various HRSA-funded and Foundation grants.
Passionate about the role of mentoring junior faculty, he has helped lead the UNM Health Science Center Faculty Mentor Development Program. He is the Assistant Dean of Mentoring and Faculty Retention Activities at the UNM Health Science Center Office of Faculty Affairs and Career Development. He has presented his research on mentor development and faculty exit interview strategy at the UNM Mentoring Conference/AAMC Group on Faculty Affairs’ Conference and his work on mentor development has been published in Academic Medicine, Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, and the Chronicle of Mentoring and Coaching. He is the P.I. of a multi-institutional U01 grant on the “Effectiveness of Innovative Research Mentor Interventions among Underrepresented Minority Faculty in the Southwest (NIGMS U01GM132175-01)”.
Gwyneth Donald is Professor of Practice in the Department of Communication and Journalism. She has been a journalist for 25 years and has taught at UNM since 2010. Gwyneth runs the New Mexico Local News Fellowship and Internship program, which journalism students and graduates in funded positions in newsrooms across the state. As publisher of the New Mexico News Port, she helps students get valuable experience writing and reporting for an online news site. As a Faculty Statehouse Champion, she has pioneered taking students
to the Roundhouse to cover the legislative session. Gwyneth covered state government as an editor and reporter at The New Mexico Independent, New Mexico in Depth and KUNM Radio News. Her report on government accountability for the Center for Public Integrity was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize from Harvard’s Kennedy School. Gwyneth's work has also been honored with awards from SPJ, the National Federation of Press Women, the Association for Alternative
Newsweeklies, the International Regional Magazine Association and the New Mexico Broadcasters Association. She was previously the executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government and has been recognized with a First Amendment Award from ACLU-NM. She is secretary of the board at the Journalism and Women Symposium and is active in SPJ, NAHJ and IJA.