COSAM News Articles 2022 April Jake Tatum – 2022 Dean’s Medal (Biological Sciences)

Jake Tatum – 2022 Dean’s Medal (Biological Sciences)

Published: 04/04/2022

Jake Tatum will graduate with a 4.0 GPA and summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology. For his academic accomplishments, he was awarded the Dean's Award for Academic Excellence, an Auburn University Undergraduate Fellowship in 2020, the Fund for Excellence Undergraduate Research Award, and was named to the Dean's list for all four years of his college career.

During his time at Auburn, Jake has been an undergraduate researcher in Joanna Sztuba-Solinska's lab, where he conducted research to develop a method to accurately assess the viral episomal copy number of the KSHV virus within latently infected cell lines for which he is a published author on a method paper.

On campus, Jake has been involved with Campus Recreation since 2019. He has worked as a supervisor and mentor for the facilities staff since fall 2020 for which he was invited to the Student Leader's Reception hosted by Auburn University President Jay Gogue.

Jake is involved in various activities with Church of the Highlands, and in his free time, he enjoys running, hiking, Auburn football games and fishing.

Jake is thankful for all the experiences and opportunities that Auburn has offered him over the past four years and would like to thank his family for their continued support throughout his educational career.

After graduation, Jake will attend graduate school seeking a Ph.D. with an end goal of working for the CDC developing novel treatments for various diseases.