The recipients for the 2011 - 2012 COSAM Dean's Research Awards have been announced and will be recognized at the awards ceremony on March 21. The ceremony will recognize a faculty member, three graduate students and one undergraduate student.

This year's faculty recipient, Scott Santos of Biological Sciences, will give the annual Dean's Faculty Research Award Lecture, "The Santos Lab: Eight years of research at Auburn University" at the award ceremony. Santos focuses his research on aquatic and terrestrial microbes and multi-cellular organisms. His research involves understanding the molecular evolution of marine invertebrates and the conservation genetics of anchialine habitats and biota in Hawaii. Santos has received $3 million in grants for his research from the National Science Foundation in the last three years.

Amin Bahmanian, doctoral candidate in Mathematics, will be recognized for his research in combinatorics, both graph and hypergraph theory. In particular, his research focuses on amalgamations, detachments, edge-decompositions, edge-colorings and embedding problems.

Kevin Kocot, doctoral candidate in Biological Sciences, will be recognized for his research on molluscs, specifically, the relationship between gastropods and bivalves. Kocot and collaborators were able to use cutting-edge genomic techniques to reveal a relationship between the two groups that had not been suspected previously.

Mike Natter, current graduate student working toward his master's degree in Geology, will be recognized for his research on the effects of the 2010 BP Macondo-1 well oil spill. Natter is focusing on the long-term detrimental effects on the geochemistry of sediments and water columns at 10 different gulf salt-marsh sites.

Kristen McCall, senior in Geology, will be recognized as the undergraduate recipient. McCall's research involves the formation and destruction of continental margins and specifically focuses on the margin separating two ancient proto-continents, Laurentia and Baltica that came together to form the super-continent Pangea.

The awards reception will begin with refreshments at 3:45 p.m. and continue with presentations at 4:00 p.m. in 115 Sciences Center Classroom Building.