AUM Faculty & Staff
Directory
Christopher Wallace
Communications and Technology Manager
Samuel Wallace
Distinguished Senior Lecturer | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Samuel Wallace has a B.A. in Communication from Lipscomb University and an M.F.A. in Theatre Arts from The University of Louisville. Before arriving at Auburn University at Montgomery, he was a Professor of Theatre at Faulkner University, and an Instructor of Speech and Theatre at Lipscomb University. He has acted in and/or directed shows professionally for theatres in Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, and Alabama. Mr. Wallace began teaching at AUM in 2008, was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2018, and was awarded the Distinguished Lecturer Award for Excellence in Teaching for 2018-2019. In the River Region, he has acted in and/or directed shows for Theatre AUM, Faulkner University Dinner Theatre, Millbrook Community Players, Prattville’s Way Off Broadway Theatre, Wetumpka Depot Players, and the Pike Road Theatre Company.
Lei Wang
Assistant Professor | College of Education
Dr. Lei Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology at Auburn University at Montgomery. Her research focuses on instructional design, educational technology, and the integration of generative AI, virtual reality, and augmented reality into K–12 and higher education. She has developed validated assessment tools, such as the Learning Resources Rubric (LRR), to enhance learning resource evaluation and instructional practices. Dr. Wang also explores digital storytelling, civic education, open education, and global teacher competency as pathways to engage diverse learners and foster reflective thinking.
Faculty’s Expertise: Instructional Design, Educational Technology, Generative AI in Education, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Digital Storytelling, Civic Education, Assessment and Evaluation, Open Education,Teacher Education
Yi Wang
Professor & Chair | College of Sciences
Ph.D. Mathematics (2003) West Virginia University
Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering (1997) Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, (1991) Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China
Bio: Dr. Wang is Professor of Mathematics at Auburn University Montgomery (AUM). He joined the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, AUM as Assistant Professor in August 2006. Subsequently, he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2010 and Professor in 2015. Dr. Wang received his second Ph.D. in mathematics from West Virginia University, USA in 2003, and his first Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Southwest Jiaotong University, China in 1997. Dr. Wang’s current research interests include machine learning and operation research.
Dr. Wang was born in China. He grew up in a family of teachers with a younger brother and younger twin sisters. At his leisure time, Dr. Wang likes swimming, tennis, pingpong, badminton, fishing, and playing poker.
Chelsea Ward
Professor/Head | College of Sciences
Ph.D. (2005) Auburn University in Biology
BS (1998) Florida Institute of Technology in Marine Biology
Dr. Ward’s research focuses are on immunology and stress physiology as it relates to temperature and changing environments. She also has interested in latitudinal gradients in stress physiology, immunology, and metabolism in Anurans.
Ashley Warren
Graduate Admissions Program Coordinator
Kaitlyn Wearden
Instructional Designer
Wyatt Wells
Professor | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Wyatt Wells, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, graduated from Vanderbilt University with a BA in 1986. Six years later, in 1992, he earned a Ph.D. in American History from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. After a year as an instructor at Chapel Hill, he took a position as an assistant editor at the Andrew Jackson Papers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He worked there three years, leaving in 1996 to be the Newcomen fellow in Business History at the Harvard Business School. The next year, he moved to Montgomery to teach at AUM. Wells has been here ever since, although in the 2001-2002 academic year he did serve as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Hong Kong.
Wells’s research has focused on the intersection of government and economics and how the issues involved often spill across national borders. He has published five books and numerous articles on subjects such as the policies of the Federal Reserve during the economically turbulent 1970s, the effort of the United States to impose its ideas about antitrust on the rest of the world during and immediately after World War II, the financial crisis that reshaped Wall Street in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Eisenhower administration’s policies towards public (electric) power, and the bitter debate in the United States in the 1890s over whether to base the currency on gold or silver. He has also produced broader studies on the history and character of capitalism and the performance of the U.S. economy in the decades after World War II. Wells has drawn on this expertise to create upper-level history classes at AUM such as “The World since 1945” and “The History of Money.”
Wyatt Wells is married and has three sons and a dog. In his spare time, he writes fiction.
