In July, the Office of Research welcomed Dr. Ece Karatan to their ranks as Interim Vice Provost for Research (VPR), a role which she will occupy during the search for a permanent Vice Provost for Research.
Before taking the position as Interim VPR, Karatan was a Professor in the Biology Department.
“I'm interested in understanding how the human pathogen Vibrio cholerae, the causative agent of the deadly diarrheal disease cholera, forms biofilms,” Karatan said.
Biofilms are communities of microorganisms that are encased in a hydrated matrix. Karatan said one way to visualize this is to think about grapes as the bacteria in jello as the matrix. The bacteria within these biofilms are very tolerant to environmental stresses, like antibiotics.
“There is evidence that biofilm formation enhances the capability of Vibrio cholerae to cause cholera,” Karatan said. “We are studying the genetic networks that respond to environmental signals to regulate biofilm formation both to understand the basic biology of the bacterium and also to find potential therapeutic targets.”
Karatan is also the former Graduate Program Coordinator in the Department of Biology.
“I loved that position because it got me in touch with all of the graduate students in the program, not only my own, and I got to learn what they did for their research projects,” Karatan said. “As you get to know the graduate students and see their research presentations, you develop a more thorough understanding about your colleagues’ research; I found this very exciting.”
However, Karatan said that beyond the Biology department and those closely affiliated with it, like Physics and Chemistry, her knowledge of other research being done on campus was limited. Being Interim Vice Provost for Research has expanded those horizons.
“I’ve started getting to know more about the research landscape on campus,” she said. “In my current position, I’ve also been able to interact with many different units and colleges; this has given me the opportunity to see how all of these different units fit together to achieve the mission of the university.”
In the Office of Research, Karatan said her main job is to help enhance the research enterprise on campus, while also identifying barriers to research at App State and finding ways to remove them.
“As I'm getting to know the position and understand what the position is about for App State, one of the things that I do a lot is problem solve,” Karatan said. “I do that in my own research all the time, but I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to go outside of my own research program and the Biology Graduate Program to problem solve at this level.”
Karatan also said that being interim VPR requires her to think about creative and meaningful ways to take the university to the next level, research-wise.
An initiative that Karatan has already implemented in the Office of Research is a research showcase with the Provost, which takes place once a month. The program gets together three faculty from three different departments across campus, along with the Provost, to discuss their research accomplishments.
“This is an effort to establish a direct line between the university administration and faculty research,” Karatan said. “To make faculty that have been successful in research, scholarly, and creative endeavors to be more visible to the university administration.”
She said a secondary goal of the event is to generate interdisciplinary research opportunities -- faculty from different departments may share research interests, and these meetings can foster the opportunity for collaboration.
Karatan said the initiative she is most proud of so far is an internal grant opportunity called the Scholarship of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Grant.
The grant is meant to support five projects, each awarded $2,500, that focus on understanding and gathering data about issues in diversity, equity, and inclusion, Karatan said. Researchers are given a year to conduct their study, and must involve at least one student as part of the research team.
One other initiative is a pilot program that provides a summer stipend for faculty to write grants. These awards are called summer SWAG (Stipend for Writing aGrant). The faculty members who are awarded one of these grants agree to finish a grant proposal and submit it to an agency of their choice. “We rolled this program out in response to requests from faculty for time and resources to write grants over the summer and we hope to continue to offer it in the future.” Karatan said.