Award-winning Auburn chemistry professor using $2.5 million in grants to propel diabetes research

Diabetes is a debilitating disease that affects millions of Americans, and one Auburn University researcher is hard at work—through the power of chemistry—to make a difference in the fight.

Chris Easley, the C. Harry Knowles Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry in COSAM is leading a team of researchers on a quest to streamline and enhance biological measuring capabilities to better understand conditions like diabetes, heart disease and obesity. Buoyed by National Institutes of Health, or NIH, grants totaling $2.5 million, Easley is partnering with other professors and enlisting his research team to conduct experiments that may one day help medical professionals better understand, treat and prevent diseases, like diabetes, that are wreaking havoc across the globe.

Bird Man - COSAM's Geoff Hill

When he arrived at Auburn University in 1993, fresh from postdoctoral work in Ontario, Geoffrey Hill was “Auburn’s primary bird man,” as he puts it in one of his books. He notes that, among the faculty of Alabama’s major universities, he was the only ornithologist around at the time and took to fielding bird questions from across the state. By that point, though, his interest in birds had already been growing for some 20 years — “literally since I’ve been 11 years old,” he explained.  “I was always a kid fascinated by animals,” Hill added, and he would roam his Kentucky neighborhood with friends, collecting snakes, salamanders and insects. But when he began to learn the basics of bird identification, the bugs and reptiles were soon forgotten.

Biophysics: Understanding the networks in our brains

Inside the Leach Science Center, you will find Michael Gramlich’s lab with a cutting-edge microscope that can image process neurons that mimic the inside of the human brain.

The microscope and lab have capabilities that very few labs in the entire world possess.

“Our microscope reproduces the way a brain functions and gives us a chance to observe functions as they would normally occur in the human body,” Gramlich said.

Auburn’s Office of Inclusion and Diversity to sponsor eight faculty members in innovative Faculty Success Program beginning spring 2022

Auburn University’s Office of Inclusion and Diversity, or OID, will sponsor eight faculty members including COSAM's Courtney Leisner, assistant professor, Biological Sciences, in the Faculty Success Program. 

The Faculty Success Program is offered through Auburn’s institutional membership with the National Center for Faculty Diversity and Development, or NCFDD. The 12-week online program—which will run from Jan. 23 to April 16—is designed to equip tenure-track and tenured faculty with the skills needed to increase research and writing productivity while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Faculty will receive weekly training from coaches certified by the NCFDD and will be invited to participate in a trio of advisory sessions with Ana Franco-Watkins, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and an Inclusive Excellence Fellow in OID.

OurSTEMStory - November 18

Please register here: https://www.ourstemstoryau.com/events.html

Please note this event will take place in person with reduced seating capacity and masks required but also through zoom and live-streamed on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDUCtNsXPhabda9afaXiQmg

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COSAM Today is published by COSAM's Office of Communications and Marketing. Questions? Send an email to mcg0052@auburn.edu.