Nagan to Head Office of Student Research

Maria Nagan, associate professor of chemistry, has been appointed director of the Office of Student Research.

The University created the OSR in 2009 to promote, facilitate, highlight and assess faculty-mentored student research and creative activities across all disciplines.

The OSR supports research through academic-year and summer grant opportunities, coordinating travel to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research and organizing the Truman Student Research Conference, among other things.

A member of the Truman faculty since 2000, Nagan is a 2010 recipient of the Walker and Doris Allen Fellowship for Faculty Excellence. She has a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, with specialty areas of biology and physical chemistry. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College in Iowa. Her research interests include molecular dynamics simulations of RNA and protein-RNA complexes, particularly those containing modified nucleic acid bases.

Nagan was appointed to an annually renewable term. She succeeds Matthew Beaky, associate professor of physics, who served as the inaugural OSR director.

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