Employee Directory

Jared Ailts

Rising Scholars Instructor

Off Campus

Julie Backous

Senior Secretary

Technology Center 358

Ms. Backous graduated from Northern State University with a BS in psychology. In 2013 she joined Northern as senior secretary for the Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences and department secretary for History and Social Sciences. Recently, she added the department of English, Communication and Global Languages to her responsibilities. Ms. Backous has more than 20 years of experience as an administrative assistant and 16 years working with children in residential behavioral settings in South Dakota and Colorado. She is delighted to be back at Northern working with students and satisfying her love of Excel spreadsheets.

Kiera Ball

Instructor of English and Reading

Technology Center 265

Kiera Ball is an Instructor of English, having joined Northern’s faculty in 2023. She holds a master’s degree in English literature from the University of South Dakota and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Sioux Falls in English and theology/philosophy.

Her research interests focus on regional literature and gender and theology in 19th- and 20th-century American and British literature.
 

Lysbeth Em Benkert

Department Chair/Professor of English

Technology Center 373

Resume/CV

Dr. Lysbeth Em Benkert arrived at Northern State University in the fall of 1995, one year after receiving her Ph.D from Washington State University. 

Her specializations include rhetorical theory and early modern literature, including Shakespeare. She also teaches creative writing. In addition to her academic scholarship, she has published original poems in a variety of literary magazines and a chapbook titled #girl stuff (Dancing Girl Press, 2018). A second chapbook of poems, Please thank you but why, is forthcoming in February of 2023.

Ken Blanchard

Professor of Government

Technology Center 357

Kenneth C. Blanchard, Jr. is a professor of government at Northern State University. He received his Ph.D. at Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California, in 1989. He began teaching at Northern that same year.

Dr. Blanchard has taught at California State University, San Bernardino. He has also taught summer courses in American government at Boise State University.  

Resume/CV

Kristen Brown

Assistant Professor of English

Technology Center 255

Ph.D. in English and American Literature, University of South Carolina, 2020

M.A. in English, Gannon University, 2009

B.S. in English/Secondary Education Track, Towson University, 2001

CV

After teaching in the eastern and southwestern U.S., Dr. Kristen Brown joined Northern's faculty in 2022. While earning her Ph.D. in English and American Literature at The University of South Carolina, she taught composition, literature, and ethics courses while designing her own minor in indigenous studies with emphasis on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her research was funded in part by the national Bilinski Dissertation Fellowship.

Dr. Brown’s teaching and research often focus on indigenous perspectives and environmental themes. In addition to recent scholarship published in Western American Literature and Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture, she has a chapter forthcoming in a book titled Race in the Multiethnic Literature Classroom in which she considers how Dakota author-activist Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa) uses storytelling to challenge the logics of settler civilization projects while carving space for common ground.

Kristi Brownfield

Associate Professor of Sociology/Director of Assessment

Technology Center 350

Ph.D., Southern Illinois University-Carbondale

Dr. Brownfield joined the NSU faculty in 2015. Her current research looks at deviance and “bad behavior” in online forums devoted to support networks. She recently has published articles on depictions of prisons in film and rural policing on television.

Research Interests/Areas of Expertise

Popular culture

New media research methods

Online phenomena

Race/class/gender

Social psychology, identity, narrative, and deviance

Rhonda Carda

Academic Advisor - History & Social Sciences/Fine Arts; Academic Advisor & Recruiter - Rising Scholars

SP 103A

M.S.Ed.  South Dakota State University

B.S.Ed  Northern State University

Being a Wolf is in my blood.  I’m the fourth generation in my family to attend Northern, with my great-grandmother graduating from Northern Normal and Industrial School in 1915.  I earned my bachelor of science in secondary education from Northern in 1989 and recently completed my master’s degree in curriculum and instruction – adult education from South Dakota State University. I have a variety of work experiences and would love to share them with you. Two of my favorite quotes are “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be” by Douglas Adams, and “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” by Dr. Seuss.

Susan Citrak

Assistant Professor of Chemistry/Student Research Coordinator

Jewett Science Center 222

Ph.D. University of California, Santa Cruz

B.Sc.  Mills College

Dr. Susan Citrak joined the faculty at Northern in 2020. She grew up in the northern California Bay area and spent 26 years in San Francisco before moving to Aberdeen. She earned a bachelor of science degree in chemistry from Mills College in Oakland, Calif., and then went on to the University of California, Santa Cruz, for doctoral work. At Mills College, she conducted undergraduate research in physical organic chemistry studying unimolecular solvolysis reactions involving carbocationic intermediates in ionic liquid solvent systems. During her tenure at UCSC, she moved into inorganic materials chemistry and studied the exchange capabilities, structure, stability and anion properties of metal-organic coordination polymers, as well as ionothermal synthesis of metal-substituted aluminophosphate molecular sieves for potential use in catalysis.

Dr. Citrak has particular interest in and passion for environmental remediation, and believes inorganic materials can play a key role in this endeavor. Outside of the lab and the classroom, Dr. Citrak is a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a novice but excited gardener, fisherwoman, and video game enthusiast. She moved to Aberdeen with her wonderfully supportive husband, Joshua, and two energetic boys, Francis and Dashiell.

Selected Publications and Presentations

1. Susan C. Citrak, Beatriz Ehlke, Stacey I. Zones, Dan Xie, Son-Jong Hwang, and Scott R. J. Oliver“MAPO-5 Molecular Sieves from Alkylimidazolium Bromide Ionic Liquids” Publication pending
2. Susan C. Citrak, Kareem Bdeir, Kevin Delgado-Cunningham, Derek Popple, and Scott R. J. Oliver. “On the exchange capability of cationic silver 4,4’-bipyridine materials for potential water remediation: structure, stability and anion exchange properties” Inorganic Chemistry, 2019, DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.9b00115
3. Susan C. Citrak, Derek Popple, Kevin Delgado-Cunningham, Katharine Tabler, Kareem Bdeir, Allen G. Oliver, Peter B. Kvam, and Scott R. J. Oliver. “Extremely Rapid Uptake of Perchlorate with Release of an Environmentally Benign Anion: Silver Bipyridine Acetate” Crystal Growth & Design, 2018, 18 (3), pp 1891-1895
4. Susan C. Citrak, Beatriz Ehlke, Andrew Ichimura, Stacey I. Zones, and Scott R. J. Oliver. Ionic liquids for the synthesis of metal aluminophosphate-based catalysts. Oral presentation at the American Chemical Society National Meeting (April 2017)
5. Kevin M. Sergo, Cari S. Han, Marc R. Bresler, Susan C. Citrak, Yashar Abdollahian, Honghan Fei, and Scott R. J. Oliver. “Erbium Hydroxide Ethanedisulfonate: A Cationic Layered Material with Organic Anion Exchange Capability.” Inorganic Chemistry, 2015, 54 (8), pp 3883–3888
6. Elizabeth D. Kochly, Susan Citrak, Nelius Gathondu, and Gabriella Amberchan “Effect of ionic liquids in unimolecular solvolysis reactions involving carbocationic intermediates.” Tetrahedron Letters, 2014, 55 (52), pp 7181-7185
7. Susan Citrak, Elizabeth D. Kochly, Nelius Gathondu. Effect of ionic liquids in unimolecular solvolysis reactions involving carbocationic intermediates. Oral presentation at the American Chemical Society Northern California Undergraduate research symposium (2013)