Drs. Esarey, Gemmer, González, and Williams Awarded 2026 URECA Faculty Awards for Excellence in Mentored Scholarship

The 2026 URECA Faculty Awards for Excellence in Mentored Scholarship go to four talented faculty members:
Dr. Justin Esarey, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Dr. John Gemmer, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Dr. Luis González, Professor of Spanish, and Dr. J’Nese Williams, Assistant Professor of History.

Dr. Justin Esarey

Professor of Politics and International Affairs

Dr. Justin Esarey is honored with the 2026 URECA Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentored Scholarship in recognition of his transformative impact on student researchers.

Beyond the traditional bounds of supervision, Dr. Esarey has engineered a pedagogical framework that empowers undergraduate students to produce work of the highest professional caliber. He involves students in his research projects, designs courses that maximize the opportunities for students to develop research skills and produce publishable papers and offers guidance to students who are pursuing graduate study. Nearly every summer since 2018, the year he came to Wake Forest University, Justin supervises students participating in Wake Forest summer research fellowship program. He has published countless studies with undergraduate and graduate students and at least five papers with WFU undergraduates. Above all, his influence is transformative. Undergraduate and graduate students across three universities highlight a rare combination of time, care, and rigorous feedback that reshapes their professional trajectories. In recognizing Dr. Esarey, we acknowledge a scholar-mentor who is deeply committed to the fruition of student potential and the advancement of the discipline.

Dr. John Gemmer

Associate Professor of Mathematics

Dr. John Gemmer is recognized with the 2026 URECA Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentored Scholarship, a distinction that honors his extraordinary mentorship pedigree.

For the past eight years at Wake Forest, Dr. Gemmer has been a prolific architect of student success, directly guiding twenty-one undergraduates through a diverse range of independent projects, honors theses, and prestigious fellowships. His mentorship transcends traditional boundaries, leveraging URECA grants, externally funded NSF-CURM awards, and national research programs to provide students with a competitive edge. By immersing mentees in the ‘inner workings’ of high-level inquiry, Dr. Gemmer offers a rare level of academic stewardship that spans from the classroom to the PhD application. His combination of personal guidance and scholarly innovation has solidified his reputation as a leader in faculty-student research endeavors, ensuring his students leave Wake Forest with a legacy of shared scholarship and profound intellectual curiosity.

Dr. Luis González

Professor of Spanish

Dr. Luis González is honored with the 2026 URECA Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentored Scholarship for bringing undergraduates into original research in Spanish linguistics and fostering a deep curiosity about language.

A scholar of syntax, Spanish grammar, and second language learning, Dr. González shows students that language is a field of questions to investigate and explain. His nominator notes that his courses often become gateways to deeper scholarly work, as he cultivates students’ curiosity through individualized mentorship. Year after year, students develop class projects into conference presentations, independent studies, honors theses, and collaborative research. Former mentees have gone on to become a Rhodes Scholar, an assistant professor at UT-Austin, a tenured professor of translation studies at UNC-Charlotte, and scholars and professionals in a range of other fields. Dr. González’s students have also contributed meaningfully to his published scholarship, helping shape books and chapters that rethink how Spanish grammar is understood. For his generous mentorship and his commitment to helping undergraduates see language study as discovery, inquiry, and scholarly contribution, Dr. González is presented this award for excellence in mentored scholarship.

Dr. J’Nese Williams

Assistant Professor of History

Dr. J’Nese Williams is honored with the 2026 URECA Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentored Scholarship for her deeply engaged mentorship of undergraduate research in history.

A historian of science, empire, botanic gardens, and environmental knowledge, Dr. Williams introduces students to archival research as a way to ask ambitious questions about power, nature, and the past. One of her mentees describes her as a “deeply impactful and sustained mentor,” noting that Dr. Williams guided her from a first-year Richter project through an Arts and Humanities Fellowship and into a departmental Honors thesis. That mentorship included archival guidance, presentation preparation, fellowship support, and graduate school advising, and the student writes that it “has had a lasting impact on how I see myself within academic spaces.” With Dr. Williams’s encouragement, her student presented research at URECA Day and Wake Forest Earth Talks, joined the highly competitive Dumbarton Oaks Plant Humanities Program, and prepared work for publication. For her generous investment in undergraduate researchers, Dr. Williams is presented this award for excellence in mentored scholarship.