Celebrating Our Founders Day Honorees

PNW professors Nicky Jackson and Omeed Ilchi display their outstanding faculty awards from Founders Day 2025.

PNW’s Department of Behavioral Sciences is proud to have two of three university-wide faculty award winners from Founders Day 2025 in our department! This also represents the second year in a row our faculty have won the teaching award (Hubert Izienicki won in 2024).

The Outstanding Faculty Engagement Award went to Nicky Jackson, professor of Criminal Justice and executive director of Center for Justice and Post-Exoneration Assistance. Her teaching areas include domestic violence, sexual assault, victimology, wrongful convictions, ethics, juvenile delinquency, school violence, criminology, minority issues in criminal justice, criminal law and law enforcement.

The Center for Justice and Post-Exoneration Assistance aims to identify and eradicate miscarriages of justice and to provide support to those who have suffered from a wrongful conviction.

The Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award went to Omeed Ilchi, assistant professor of Criminal Justice. His main teaching areas include policing, community corrections, institutional corrections, criminological theory, courts, statistics and race and ethnicity in the criminal justice system.

Congratulations to these two inspiring faculty members, whose hard work and commitment benefits all of the PNW students who study with them.