Christy L. Bratcher

Christy Bratcher was raised in both Alabama and Florida. She attended the University of Florida for a BS in animal science-safety and processing of meat. While an undergraduate student, she worked at the meats lab, and because of her experience on the topic, she was offered an opportunity to teach a course during her senior year. During this experience, she discovered her passion for teaching, and she decided to further her education in meat science. She completed a MS thesis at UF on characterizing muscles in the chuck and round for tenderness and aging response. She then moved the University of Missouri-Columbia to pursue a PhD, where she worked on a biosensor for detection of calpastatin in meat for her dissertation. She worked in the industry for a short time before joining Auburn in March 2008. She teaches two courses per semester, advises the Collegiate Cattlemen, and participates in outreach events in addition to her research, which focuses on meat quality, food safety, and consumer perception of meat.

Kelly Dean Jolley

Kelly Dean Jolley has been teaching at Auburn since 1991. He works in the theory of judgment, philosophical logic, philosophical psychology, and metaphilosophy. He has written on many philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Kierkegaard, Frege, Wittgenstein, Thoreau, Emerson, Merleau-Ponty, and J. L. Austin, among others. He is married to Shanna, an optician, and his two children, Eli (theater), and Sydney (philosophy), both graduated from Auburn. He counts his biggest sources of inspiration as his teachers, including some he has known only on the page, like Socrates and Wittgenstein. Others influences include Lewis White Beck, James Haden, Kathy Spencer, and Fay Sauer.

Donald Mulvaney

Donald Mulvaney, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Animal Sciences, College of Agriculture, received the Award for Excellence in Faculty Outreach in recognition of his exemplary record of engaged scholarship in developing innovative youth and adult extension leadership programs for Alabama’s beef cattle producers. His distinguished outreach accomplishments have contributed to the growth and economic impact of this dynamic state industry, but also serves as a model of engagement for other states to follow in their animal agricultural programming.

Sciences, Biomedical Sciences, Engineering and Agriculture

Kenneth M. Halanych

Dr. Ken Halanych, the Schneller Endowed Chair and professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, was honored for his internationally recognized research on the Antarctic ecosystem and invertebrate phylogeography. His work has been published in top scientific journals, including Science and Nature, and he has received nearly $7 million in extramural research funding.

Chris Newland

Dr. Chris Newland, professor in the Department of Psychology, received the CRSA for his research on the behavioral impact of drugs and environmental contaminants that act on the brain. His work blends experimental psychology and behavior analysis with a focus on environmental health and neuroscience. Dr. Newland’s research has received nearly $5 million in extramural funding, from agencies such as the National Institute of Drug Abuse, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Kevin Moore

Kevin Moore teaches in the architecture and interior architecture programs where his focus has been to integrate interior and exterior environments for renovations, additions, and new buildings in urban settings. His research focuses on experiential variety over time by incorporating landscape features and promoting passive environmental stimuli in combination with social and spatial potentials. An example of creative scholarship demonstrating these principles is “Beyond the Groundwork,” an exhibition of alumni and faculty work designed and fabricated with Amanda Herron Loper. The exhibition design was awarded Best Creative Scholarship at the Interior Design Educators Council South Region Conference in 2013. Moore also serves as the faculty advisor for the Auburn chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architecture (NOMA) Students. Teams from Auburn have consistently competed in the NOMA student design competition, winning first place in 2011, 2012, and 2013, and second place in 2017. Before teaching, Moore worked for more than 10 years on a diverse range of projects with several award-winning architecture firms, including Eskew+Dumez+Ripple in New Orleans and Lohan Anderson in Chicago.

Keven Yost

Synovus Fellow and Associate Professor, Department of Finance, Harbert College of Business

Yost has been out in front, leading by being among the finest examples of ingenuity in academic practicum and technology integration. While at Auburn, Yost has developed and implemented several new courses, including a Chartered Financial Analyst course that prepares students for the CFA Level I exam and a Mergers and Acquisitions course that provides a strategic analysis of corporate restructuring decisions. He also has succeeded in obtaining the CFA Institute’s University Recognition Designation, which elevates the reputation of Auburn’s finance program and Harbert College of Business as a whole. Yost’s unparalleled drive and leadership have not gone unnoticed by his peers, practitioners that recruit at Auburn, nor by his students. From his recognition as the Finance Department Outstanding Teacher in 2013 to the Harbert College MBA Programs Outstanding Faculty award in 2018, Yost has rarely gone a year without acknowledgment of his unrelenting pursuit of excellence.

Henry W. Kinnucan

Henry Kinnucan hails from the Midwest, where he received a BS degree in agricultural economics from the University of Illinois and MS and PhD degrees in agricultural and applied economics from the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the Auburn faculty in 1983, he spent three years as a research associate in the department of agricultural economics and management at Cornell University. He served as his department’s graduate program officer between 2009 and 2015, a period that saw graduate enrollment in his department reach an all-time high of 54 students, including 34 at the doctoral level. His international involvement includes serving as an adjunct professor at the University of Tromso, Norway, from 1999 to 2012, and teaching in the graduate programs at universities in China, Taiwan, and Vietnam. His publications include four co-edited books and more than 100 journal articles. In recent years, his research program, which centers on agricultural prices, policy, and trade, has been supported by the National Science Foundation. He has served as major professor to 45 graduate students, and has mentored eight visiting scholars.

Aquaponics Working Group

The Aquaponics Working Group brings together researchers from fisheries, horticulture, and biosystems engineering to study aquaponics, a field often called “the future of farming” because of its highly efficient use of water to grow both fish and produce. Auburn’s Tiger Dining is also an partner, getting year-round access to high-value products in return for a reasonable investment. In turn, researchers are afforded the opportunity to study a working model that otherwise would be too costly to operate.

Food Entrepreneur Working Group

The Food Entrepreneur Working Group brings together faculty members and others interested in helping budding food entrepreneurs. Faculty from animal sciences, fisheries and aquaculture, food science, and business join with representatives of the Small Business Administration’s Small Business Development Center to sponsor conferences where aspiring entrepreneurs learn about labeling, regulations, business plans, marketing, and finding financing.

Department of Physics

The Auburn University Department of Physics has more than 25 faculty, 60 undergraduate students, and 50 graduate students. Each student receives a sort of individual attention that is usually only available at much smaller schools. Additionally, the department has one of the leading plasma physics programs in the country, along with strong research in atomic, molecular, and optical physics and condensed matter/solid states. In Spring 2019, the department will move to the newly renovated Leach Science Center, where most of the laboratory facilities are currently housed. The state-of-the-art building is designed to foster collaboration between faculty, house undergraduate laboratory classrooms, and connect faculty and graduate students in the lab.

Sushil Adhikari

Dr. Adhikari began academic work at Auburn University as an Assistant Professor of Biosystems Engineering in 2008, promoted to Associate Professor and tenured in 2013 and became full Professor in 2017. Dr. Adhikari earned his B.S. with Gold Medal in Mechanical Engineering from Tribhuvan University in Nepal, M.S. degree in Energy Technology from Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand and Ph.D. in Biological Engineering from Mississippi State University. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in Alabama.Dr. Adhikari has been devoted to discovery and education in Biosystems Engineering at Auburn University. His research and teaching efforts are focused on biofuels and bioenergy - namely gasification, pyrolysis, hydrothermal liquefaction and hydrogen production. Dr. Adhikari’s research has led to better understanding the role of biomass properties on syngas quality, and hydrocarbons production using biomass gasification, pyrolysis and liquefaction processes.

Mona El-Sheikh

Dr. Mona El-Sheikh, the Leonard Peterson & Company, Inc. Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, was honored for innovative research that links socio-economic adversity, family risks and well-being, with physical health, sleep processes, and brain function. Supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation among others, El-Sheikh and her colleagues’ groundbreaking work on the role of sleep and sleep problems in child development has expanded to include sleep regulation in adults and adolescents. Her findings help identify and address insufficient sleep as an important public health issue.