Affiliate Faculty

Dr. Arias is a microbiologist who researches oyster safety. She has designed a new oyster-purification system that aims to eliminate Vibrio vulnificus by using a provisionally patented, novel cleansing system—making Gulf oysters safe year-round.

Leonard Bell is a professor of poultry science in the College of Agriculture. His primary research focus is in the area of food physical chemistry.

Onikia Brown is an associate professor and extension nutritionist in the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics, and Hospitality Management in the College of Human Sciences. Her research interests include using Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) to examine the nutritional determinants, consequences, and prevention of diet-related health disparities in ethnic minority and low-income populations.

Donna Burnett is an assistant professor of nutrition in the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics, and Hospitality in the College of Human Sciences. Her areas of expertise include nutrition counseling; professional practice in dietetics and dietetics education; adverse childhood experiences and adult health outcomes; college weight gain and college health; and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) research.

David Cline is an extension specialist in the School of Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences. His areas of expertise are catfish aquaculture, caged fish production, recreational pond management, small-scale marketing, aquatic plant management, aquaculture (other species) freshwater shrimp, crawfish, koi and aquatic plants.

Dr. William Daniels is an associate professor of marine and freshwater aquaculture for the School of Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences. Dr. Daniels’ research focuses on catfish aquaculture and alternative production systems

Dr. Duran researches new products for treating diseases in food animals and works with veterinarians to study proper dosages and withdrawal times to ensure meat and milk safety. Her areas of interest are antimicrobial stewardship, novel dosage forms to include transdermals PLO’s and ocular hydrogels as well as other sustained release formulation to improve compliance and ease of delivery for animal owners.

Dr. Misty Edmondson is an assistant professor in the food animal section of the College of Veterinary Medicine, where her duties include management of clinical hospital cases, didactic teaching, research, and outreach. Her major research interest is theriogenology of cattle, small ruminants, and camelids.

Dr. Huang focuses on food safety and the development of biosensors to detect foodborne pathogens.

Kathy Lawrence is a professor of entomology and plant pathology. Her ares of expertise are soil borne and foliar fungal diseases, specifically plant parasitic nematodes and fungi attacking field crops, vegetables and ornamentals with emphasis on nematode and fungal pathogen interactions, and host-pathogen relationships in the natural environment.

Dr. Emefa Monu comes to Auburn from the University of Tennessee, where she was completing post-doctoral studies. Her goal as a researcher is to improve food security through increasing the microbiological safety and shelf life of food.

Dr. Newton is the dietitian in the AU Pharmaceutical Care Center. She is also an assistant professor at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine and has been a registered dietitian nutritionist for five years. Annie’s current research interests include preventative lifestyle behaviors, with specific interest in identifying and intervening with at-risk populations (e.g., pre-diabetic individuals, children with developmental disabilities, and geriatric patients) in order to prevent obesity and disease progression, thereby improving their overall quality of life.

Dr. Ostrowski is an associate professor of public health in the Department of Pathobiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine. She serves as lead faculty coordinator for DVM+MPH combined degree program options with Auburn’s partner programs at the University of Minnesota (Veterinary MPH program) and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She also provides public health career counseling to undergraduates, veterinary students, and post-graduate DVMs. Stephanie’s research interests include public health/one health, herd health; food animal medicine and surgery; agricultural sustainability; epidemiology; emerging infectious diseases; equine sports medicine; CBRNE preparedness and response; and food safety, including antimicrobial resistance.

Elizabeth Schwartz is an assistant professor of biological sciences in the College of Sciences and Mathematics. Schwartz has a longstanding interest in the foodborne bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes and in the innate immune responses elicited by this organism.

Dr. Starkey is an assistant professor in the Department of Poultry Science and chair of the Animal Food Manufacturing, Quality, and Safety Working Group at AUFSI. He previously served as director of technical services at American Proteins, Inc. in Cumming, Georgia. Charles was named American Feed Industry Association’s Member of the Year in 2015. His research focuses on connecting all aspects of animal food ingredient characteristics, dietary formulations, animal food manufacturing techniques, live animal performance, and gastrointestinal tract physiology and health.

Dr. Thippareddi is interested in the development and validation of intervention technologies for the food industry to control foodborne pathogens, non-thermal food processing and safety and rapid detection and identification of foodborne pathogens, among other subjects.

Dr. Wang is a professor in the Department of Pathobiology.  He previously worked at Yangzhou University College of Veterinary Medicine of China as a Jiangsu specially appointed professor (2012-2016). His research interests include molecular diagnostics, pathogenesis of Chlamydia, and transmission mechanisms of vector-borne agents with zoonotic importance.

Dr. Wang is interested in the applied and fundamental study of food engineering and food safety. He was one of 15 food safety authorities on the Beijing Olympic Food Safety Expert Committee before the 2008 Olympics. His current research involves extracting the bioactive element fucoxanthine from algae and, after the extraction, utilizing the rest of the algae in a sustainable way. Fucoxanthine may possibly be used to control obesity and diabetes.

Daniel Wells’ research program is focused on specialty crop production systems in Alabama, and was recommended to the faculty because of his interest in local foods production.

Dr. Worosz researches economic viability in rural settings. She focuses on barriers and constraints to increasing production and consumption of local and regional products.