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Faculty and Staff Highlights from around COSAM

Dean Nicholas Giordano recognized several COSAM faculty and students at the 2017-2018 Dean’s Research Awards ceremony on March 27. The awards, which began in 1997, recognize outstanding achievement.

Yanzhao Cao

Yanzhao Cao received a bachelor’s degree in computational mathematics from Jilin University in China in 1983, and a master of science degree in mathematics from Jilin University of China in 1986. He received his doctor of philosophy in mathematics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1996. Prior to arriving at Auburn, he worked at Florida A&M University as an assistant professor and associate professor with tenure. 

In 2008, Cao joined the faculty in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics as an associate professor and was promoted to full professor three years later. He won the best student paper award at the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Student Conference in 1996. Cao currently serves as an associate editor of several mathematical journals, including the SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis, a flagship journal in computational mathematics. 

Cao’s research is in the area of numerical methods for partial differential equations and stochastic computing. He strives to construct efficient numerical algorithms to solve mathematical problems which have real-world applications. Over the course of his career, he has published over 60 papers, 40 of which have been published since joining the Auburn faculty. One of his recent papers is currently listed as a feature article by the SIAM Journal of Numerical Analysis. Since Cao has been at Auburn, his esearch has been continually funded by various federal funding agencies, including the NSF, the Air Force Office for Scientific Research, and the Army Research Office.

Paul Cobine

Paul Cobine is an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. His research is focused on understanding how organisms regulate the concentration and distribution of metals. Approximately 40 percent of the cellular proteome requires metals for proper function. However, there is a limited understanding of how these essential elements get to the necessary target and how they avoid inappropriate interactions. Cobine has made significant research contributions to the discovery and definition of the mechanism of action of copper proteins in mitochondria. Mitochondrial copper is required for two target enzymes that are critical to normal physiology, and defects in their activity have been linked to cardiovascular disease, neurological disorders, and ultimately death. Cobine and his students discovered the transporter that is required for the accumulation of mitochondrial copper, and they are currently working to define the roles of this protein in multiple pathways. In addition, Cobine, with collaborators from the College of Agriculture, have been working to understand Xylella fastidiosa, a plant pathogen that causes billions of dollars in damage each year worldwide. They have demonstrated a clear role for calcium in regulating virulence factors in the bacterium and have shown that ionome remodeling of the plant host in response to infection can be directly correlated to disease symptoms; therefore, expanding the concept of nutritional immunity to include response to this xylem limited pathogen.

Cobine received a bachelor of science and doctorate from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, from the Department of Microbiology and Parasitology. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Division of Hematology at the University of Utah before joining the faculty at Auburn in 2008. His research is funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Héctor Hérnández Corzo

Héctor Hérnández Corzo is a Mexican-born doctoral candidate in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He received a bachelor of science degree from the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico in 2011, and subsequently began his graduate studies at Auburn under the mentorship of Joseph Vincent Ortiz, Ruth W. Molette Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Corzo’s research concerns the development of quantum electron propagator methods and computational  algorithms for the prediction and elucidation of the electronic structure properties of atoms and molecules. In 2016, during the Sanibel Symposium in celebration of the centennial of Per-Olov Löwdin, he was recognized by the faculty of the Quantum Theory Project of the University of Florida for having the best graduate student research. In the same year, he was honored with the American Chemical Society Chemical Computing Group Excellence Award. In 2017, he received the Young Professional of the Year award from the Science Gateways Community Institute project, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. As a member of the Auburn community, Corzo has been actively involved in several administrative committees and served as the vice president of student affairs for the Auburn University Graduate Student Council. Throughout his studies, he has  presented his research at national and international conferences. Corzo has published more than 12 articles in peer-reviewed journals and received multiple awards and honors. Upon his graduation in August 2018, he will continue his academic journey as a postdoctoral fellow.

Geoffrey Harrison

Geoffrey Harrison is an undergraduate student and research assistant in the Department of Physics. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but spent most of his childhood in Atlanta. He came to Auburn in 2014 and is double majoring in physics and mathematics. In early 2017, he started working with Guillaume Marc Laurent, associate professor in the Department of Physics, in the Auburn Source of Attosecond Pulses laboratory. While there, he has developed a method to reconstruct the three-dimensional emission pattern of any charged particles collected with a Velocity Map Imaging system, which is faster and more accurate than previously known methods. The work under review for publication in a scientific journal, and the project has been presented at numerous national conferences. Harrison completed his physics coursework in 2017 and expects to graduate in fall 2018 after finishing his mathematics degree. He plans to continue his academic career by seeking a doctorate in physics. 

Juan Hu

Juan Hu is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. She was born and raised in Yunnan province in China. Before joining Auburn, she received a bachelor’s degree in light chemical engineering from the Shanghai Institute of Technology, and a master’s degree in engineering in applied chemistry from East China University of Science and Technology. She came to Auburn University in the fall 2013 to pursue her doctorate in chemistry, studying bioanalytical chemistry with her mentor, the C. Harry Knowles Associate Professor Christopher Easley in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Hu’s research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and focuses on the development of sensitive, small-volume immunoassays and microfluidic tools for studying dynamics of hormone secretion from cells related to diabetes and obesity. Her results have been reported in five manuscripts thus far, she has a recently issued patent, and she has been given several awards and grants for oral or poster presentations in national and international conferences. She previously served as a graduate teaching assistant for undergraduate general chemistry and organic chemistry laboratories, and she is currently working as a graduate research assistant in Easley’s laboratory. Hu graduated in August 2018.

Ken Yang

Ken Yang is a master’s student in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. He grew up in Birmingham and joined Auburn as an undergraduate in 2013. During his undergraduate career, he completed two years of research in atomic physics with Stuart Loch, professor in the Department of Physics, and he was an Auburn undergraduate research fellow. In 2016, he received a bachelor of science in physics with a minor in mathematics. Yang continued his graduate studies in mathematics at Auburn, and he received a Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship in the summer of 2017. Currently, he is studying graph and hypergraph theory with his mentor, Alumni Professor Pete Johnson, and he graduated in the summer 2018. After graduation, Yang is planning to join the Missile Defense Agency in Huntsville.

 

Last Updated: 10/12/2018