COSAM News Articles 2021 May Message from Dean Giordano – May 2021

Message from Dean Giordano – May 2021

Published: 05/04/2021

To all COSAM Faculty, Staff and Students:

Our campus and local community is on the right track with regards to the COVID19 pandemic. Through the significant efforts by the university and by all of you, our campus has met the challenges of the last year and remains committed to providing a high quality education to all of our students.

To add to this momentum, the low numbers of new COVID19 cases has allowed Auburn to plan a return to in-person instruction this fall. I believe that students and faculty are looking forward to this next step in the return to normal.

Another indication of this return to normalcy is the resumption of COSAM summer camps, to serve the K-12 children in the community.

Researchers in COSAM have also persevered through the past year. While research projects have certainly been affected, travel and other research-related activities are now also getting back to normal, as our faculty and graduate students have continued to be extremely productive with regards to research.

Our extramural funding has increased from $12 million in FY2016 to more than $18 million in FY2020.

This year, we again have three prestigious NSF CAREER Awards: Ryan Comes in the Department of Physics, Ming Chen in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Thi-Thao-Phuong Hoang in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics—the first ever CAREER award for this Department. Since 2014, COSAM has more than a dozen NSF CAREER Awards valued at more than $10 million. Whatsmore, our extramural funding has increased to another new record of more than $18 million in FY2020.

Additionally, four of our faculty, Mark Liles, Stewart Schneller, Steven Mansoorbadi, and Chris Easley, are receiving patents for breakthroughs in their research.

COSAM continues to conduct transformative research and make a significant impact.

Thank you for helping us make the spring semester successful and your continued dedication to our college.

Thanks.

Nick