Sutherland named interim dean for College of Science and Mathematics

Dr. John Sutherland, associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Science and Mathematics, has been named interim dean of the College of Science and Mathematics.

Sutherland, who joined Augusta University in the summer of 2015 after serving 14 years at East Carolina University (ECU), is also director of the Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship (CURS). He succeeds Dr. Rickey Hicks, who passed away on Jan. 7.

Prior to his tenure at ECU, Sutherland taught and conducted research at several institutions, including Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University of California at Irvine and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He is an award-winning physicist who has focused his research on studies of biological molecules and the effects of ultraviolet and ionizing radiation on DNA and biological cells. He has been recognized for inventing the IMAGESystem, the first charged-coupled device electronic imaging system for recording fluorescence from electrophoretic gels, and the Fluorescence Omnilyzer, a single-photon counting system that records simultaneously the wavelength, time-of-arrival and polarization of each detected photon.