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A Message from the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies

It has been one year since I have taken on this new role as the College of Sciences and Mathematics’ associate dean for research and graduate studies, and it has been a real honor to serve the faculty and graduate students in COSAM. I want to thank Raymond Henry for his years of service in this role and for all of his advice and support as I have moved into this position.

With President Steven Leath’s focus on growing the research portfolio, COSAM will play a major role in advancing the Auburn research agenda. COSAM faculty and staff are engaged in a diverse portfolio of activities that, over the past year, have attracted more than $11 million in extramural funding – a new record for COSAM. Moreover, we have continued to hire excellent new faculty who are bringing new energy, enthusiasm and diversity to COSAM’s research activities making the outlook for the future very bright.

Some particular highlights from the last year include the following:

• The Department of Geosciences led an effort to establish a new interdisciplinary doctoral program in Earth System Sciences that started in fall 2018.

• Bradley Merner, of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is a recipient of a 2017 National Science Foundation Early Faculty Career (CAREER) award, one of the most prestigious grants for junior faculty. Merner is the fifth CAREER award recipient in COSAM in the past four years.

• Auburn students received a record five National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRRP) awards in early 2018 and three of those will be joining graduate programs in COSAM: two in Geosciences and one in the Department of Biological Sciences.

• COSAM faculty have hosted and been co-sponsors of numerous conferences this year. Among them were the 2018 Spring Topology and Dynamics conference coordinated by Professor Krystyna Kuperberg (Department of Mathematics and Statistics), the 2018 Sherwood Fusion Theory Conference coordinated by Associate Professor Luca Guazotto (Department of Physics), and the 2018 Gordon Research Conference on Enzymes, Coenzymes, Metabolic Pathways coordinated by Professor Holly Ellis (Department of Biological Sciences).

• Finally, Fall 2017 saw the start of two major research activities funded through the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). A four-year, $1.5 million joint effort between the Department of Biological Sciences and Kinesiology on the relationship between genomes and phenomes and a five-year, $3.6 million effort based in the Department of Physics in the area of low temperature plasma physics.

These activities illustrate the broad range of activities occurring within COSAM as we are looking forward to another exciting year.

Edward Thomas 

Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies

Last Updated: 10/12/2018