Steve Taylor, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President for Research and Economic Development
President, Auburn Research and Technology Foundation
“Safer, Stronger, Healthier.” The words sound simple, but they say a lot about the real-world impact of Auburn University’s research. There has been a lot of emphasis in recent months on demonstrating the value and return on investment for the dollars that are entrusted to universities for research purposes. From my perspective, Auburn University has always done an outstanding job of stewarding the resources invested here and showing the benefits of our research efforts.
When it came to assembling this issue of Auburn Research, it wasn’t a question of finding impactful projects to highlight. Instead, our team had the challenge of deciding how to narrow down the list to stay within the page limits of a regular-sized magazine! As you peruse the articles contained here, we hope you gain a fresh appreciation for the variety of ways in which Auburn researchers are making our world a better place to live — a place that is, indeed, safer and stronger and healthier because of their discoveries.
If you want to see dedication to improving animal and human health, look no further than Dr. Kathryn Reif, whose delicate tick research is expanding our knowledge of how to combat these parasites and the diseases they sometimes transmit. Meanwhile, Dr. Neha Potnis and colleagues are working to keep food crops flourishing and safe from plant pathogens. And we’ve also highlighted projects from the College of Human Sciences and the College of Liberal Arts that aim to improve children’s literacy, family relationships and hearing health.
The bottom line, I think, is that Auburn’s research efforts are clearly benefiting us all, here in the state of Alabama and beyond. From work that makes our military and first responders safer to creative scholarship that gives us new perspectives on the complexities of our world, we have a lot to be proud of in the endeavors of our faculty, students and other research professionals.
