COSAM News Articles 2024 06 Two Auburn biologists organize sessions at The Allied Genetics Conference in DC

Two Auburn biologists organize sessions at The Allied Genetics Conference in DC

Published: 07/02/2024

Rita Graze and Laurie Stevison organized major sessions at the The Allied Genetics Conference 2024 (TAGC2024) hosted by the Genetics Society of America that was held in Washington D.C. during Spring Break in March 2024.

Graze, an associate professor, and Stevison, an associate professor and Coordinator for Graduate Certificate in Computational Biology, are both from the Department of Biological Sciences at Auburn University.

In total, there were five members from the two lab groups representing Auburn at the conference. From the Stevison Lab, there were three in attendance – Stevison, a postdoc from her lab, Spencer Koury, and an undergraduate attending her first scientific conference, Amelia May. Stevison and Koury co-chaired a session on Chromosome Dynamics where Stevison gave a talk on the NIH funded work in her lab.

From the Graze Lab, there were two in attendance. Graze organized two major sessions. One session was titled “Sex Differences in Biology and Disease” and her recently graduated PhD student Mursalin Khan spoke during this session on his dissertation work in her lab. Additionally, Graze organized a second session in the same area focused on Genomes and Genomics.

Koury also presented a poster on his work prior to starting in the Stevison Lab. Additionally, Amelia presented research from her work as a student researcher in the Stevison Lab that she has done in collaboration with PhD student Natalia Rivera-Rincon.

“The conference is only held every four years, so we were excited to be able to help facilitate sessions for the 2,884 attendees,” said Stevison.