Impactful Teaching and Research
As part of an initiative to recognize impactful research, teaching and creative scholarship across Idaho State University campuses, two faculty who have made meaningful contributions in these key focus areas are being honored each month during the academic year.
Impactful Teaching
TIM ANDERSON
Clinical Assistant Professor
Department of Accounting
College of Business
Tim Anderson is a clinical associate professor in his third year of teaching. He came to ISU after 30 years practicing as a CPA and owning a regional firm specializing in taxation, business mergers, and business succession planning. Tim earned his MAcc from Brigham Young University with an emphasis in taxation and his BBA in Accounting from Idaho State University. Tim's specialty is taxes, and he teaches several courses in the Masters of Accounting program. He also teaches a basic accounting course to non-business majors.
Tim has a passion for teaching, and likens his job to professional storytelling. Once a new concept is introduced in his courses, he often has a real-world example that demonstrates the concept. At the beginning of each semester, he likes to find out what businesses or industries his students have been exposed to and he tries to provide examples from those industries in lectures.
I really liked how professor Anderson used real world examples. It really taught me what tax would be like in the real world and not just what a textbook teaches us.”
“Tim is a great guy and a very good teacher. I learned a lot from his class.”
— Students in Tim's courses
Impactful Research
EMANUELE ZAPPALA, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Mathematics & Statistics
College of Science and Engineering
Dr. Zappala’s research develops mathematical and machine-learning frameworks to understand complex systems in neuroscience, physics, and quantum information. His work combines operator learning methods in machine learning with ideas from topology to model nonlocal and high-dimensional dynamics.
A major focus of his research is the study of brain activity using data such as functional MRI (fMRI). By applying operator learning techniques inspired by topological concepts such as fixed-point theory, his work aims to capture the underlying structure of brain dynamics and improve the interpretability of learned models.
In parallel, Dr. Zappala studies quantum algebraic structures, including quantum groups and Yang–Baxter operators, and their associated cohomology theories. This work aims to contribute to quantum topology through the development and study of quantum invariants, with applications to mathematical physics. He also explores connections between topological quantum field theory and quantum machine learning, using tools from quantum topology and quantum algebra.