Academic Year: 2020-2021
I. Departmental Steering Committee
Charge: The Departmental Steering Committee is responsible for providing advice to the Chair of the Department related to financial and other general matters that arise within the department. The committee meets on an ad hoc basis and those with potential conflicts of interest are excused from the meeting.
Chair: William E. Sonntag, PhD
Paul DeAngelis, PhD
Frank Hays, PhD
Guangpu Li, PhD
Augie Pioszak, PhD
Ann Olson, PhD
Arlan Richardson, PhD
Karla Rodgers, PhD
Deepa Sathyaseelan, PhD
Zoltan Ungvari, MD, PhD
Derrick Grady (Business Manager)
II. Graduate Education Committee
Charge: This committee will be responsible for screening applicants for the Department’s Master’s and PhD Programs and recommending qualified applicants to the faculty for graduate program admission. It will also coordinate any advertising of department graduate programs. The Committee will make recommendations to the Program faculty, or, where appropriate, will itself implement the development of special recruiting efforts and programs. This committee will meet and counsel new students joining our programs, prepare the Report of the Doctoral Advisory Conference, and serve as the advisory committee until the students assemble thesis or dissertation committees. For advanced students joining the PhD Program, the Committee will evaluate prior courses taken to determine the level at which the student will enter the program, what credits should be transferred to OUHSC, and what courses will be required.
The committee reviews all policies and operating procedures of the BMB Graduate Program, as well as graduate course offerings by the Department and makes recommendations to the Chair and full-time faculty about changes in the program, the curriculum, addition of new courses and deletion of old courses, etc. This committee also reviews the GPiBS Fall curriculum and makes recommendations to the GPiBS GECC on changes. The Graduate Program Director chairs this Committee. Members of this committee will include faculty currently serving on GPiBS committees to act as liaisons between both programs.
Chair: Karla Rodgers, PhD
Ken Humphries, PhD
Guangpu Li, PhD
Ben Miller, PhD
Augen Pioszak, PhD
Heather Rice, PhD
Deepa Sathyaseelan, PhD
Archana Unnikrishnan, PhD
Jialing Lin, PhD
III. General Examination Committee
Charge: This Committee will help to develop guidelines for, and to administer the General Examination (Qualifying Examination), for the Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Graduate Program. The Committee will determine if students have selected appropriate proposal topics and will assign a faculty committee to oversee each student’s progress and grade the written and oral exam for each student. The Committee will meet with graduate students who plan to take the General Examination in order to counsel them on how to prepare for the examination. After the exam is graded, the Chair will forward a written recommendation to the department Chair and the faculty will vote on the pass/fail status of each student.
Chair: Ann Olson, PhD
Karen Abbott, PhD
Jialing Lin, PhD
Archana Unnikrishnan, PhD
Ad hoc Student Representative
IV. Professional Education Committee
Charge: This committee of course directors will meet at least each Spring to review the Medical courses that include Biochemistry faculty (currently Metabolism and Nutrition, Molecular and Cellular Systems, the enrichment topics and the Capstone Course themes) and Pharmacy/ Dental Biochemistry course curricula and evaluate, review, and make recommendations to the Department Chair and faculty regarding course content. Representatives from the Colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry will be involved in any significant changes to the courses.
The course directors are responsible for decisions regarding the operation of the courses. The committee will present for discussion by the full-time Department faculty a review and evaluation of these courses including their coordination, effectiveness and appropriateness regarding content.
Chair: Guangpu Li, PhD
Paul DeAngelis, PhD
Ann Louise Olson, PhD
V. Appointment/ Promotions/ Tenure & Award Nominations Committee
Charge: This committee will annually review the credentials and progress of all non-tenured tenure-track and pre-tenure track faculty, and those faculty members who are eligible and who wish to be considered for either tenure or promotion in rank. This committee will also evaluate credentials of faculty applying for Adjunct appointments or promotion in Adjunct status.
A written summary of the Committee's evaluation and recommendation is forwarded to the Department Chair who may seek an appropriate action by the relevant full-time faculty group (voting is by tenured faculty for tenure consideration; faculty at higher rank than the applicant for promotions). In addition, the Committee will review accomplishments of faculty and, based on this review, prepare nominations of eligible faculty members for University-sponsored awards. The committee will be responsible for student awards.
Chair: Ann Louise Olson, PhD
Anna Csiszar, PhD
Paul DeAngelis, PhD
Jay Hanas, PhD
Guangpu Li, PhD
Jialing Lin, PhD
Arlan Richardson, PhD
Equipment, Biophysical Methods and Advanced Technologies
Charge: This committee will review the equipment needs of the department, make recommendations for equipment that should be under contract, evaluate requests for new common equipment or upgrades. The committee will submit annual applications to PHF for equipment necessary for the department.
Chair: Karen Abbott, PhD
Jay Hanas, PhD
Karen Jonscher, PhD
Jialing Lin, PhD
Blaine Mooers, PhD
Karla Rodgers, PhD
Willard Freeman, PhD
Department Seminar
Charge:Develop a clear procedure/protocol of nominating, vetting and coordinating speakers to OUHSC that advance the missions of the department.
Chair: Augen Pioszak, PhD
Frank Hays, PhD
Heather Rice, PhD
Arlan Richardson, PhD
Ad hoc student representative