Marshall Magazine Autumn 2022

D r. John Maher, vice president for research at Marshall, says the university’s prestigious reputation for research is a success story 25 years in the making. Having achieved Carnegie Classification R2 High Research Activity status in 2018, Marshall is now among the top 6% of research universities in the country. “If you name a direction of research, our faculty are involved in it,” Maher said. “When you look at Marshall research, it’s impactful.” Many factors at Marshall foster research and have laid the groundwork for this success, such as the accreditation of the College of Engineering and Computer Sciences, as well as the construction of the Robert C. Byrd Biotechnology Science Center in 2006 and the Arthur Weisberg Family Applied Engineering Complex in 2015. This past fiscal year, Marshall was awarded approximately $63 million in grants for research — an all-time record for the university. “Those are elements that have been built brick by brick by Marshall faculty, and we’ve been come a long way in the last 25 years,” Maher said. Maher said the research experience at Marshall prepares students, no matter their area of study, for the real world.

Dr. John Maher is executive director of the Marshall University Research Corporation and vice president for research at Marshall.

“That training builds resilience, self confidence, and collaborative and team skills,” he explained. “We see that across the board, whether somebody’s doing an undergraduate research project in fine arts or doing an undergraduate research project in biomedical engineering.” One focus of research at Marshall is dis covering new pathways for treating obesity, spearheaded by Dr. Umapathy Sundaram, vice dean for research and chairman of the Department of Clinical and Translational Science at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine. “Obesity is an epidemic inWest Virginia and central Appalachia,” said Sundaram. “The many complications of obesity, such as diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver dis ease, cardiovascular disease, etc., are more common in West Virginia than most any other state.” To focus the research at Marshall in this important area, the Appalachian Center for Cellular Transport in Obesity Related

Dr. Umapathy Sundaram has practiced gastroenterology at Marshall and WVU for almost 20 years and is discovering new pathways for treating obesity.

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