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Kevin Ahern in an office

Kevin Ahern

Professor
Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
Oregon State University
College of Science

Kevin Ahern

Professor
Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
Oregon State University
College of Science

I am a Professor and teach courses largely taken by students pursuing careers in the health sciences including General Biochemistry, Elementary Biochemistry, Molecular Medicine, Scientists in the Public Eye, and Introduction to Biochemistry/Biophysics Research. I am an ardent advocate of the use of technology in the classroom and towards this end, I videotape all of my survey course lectures and provide streaming and iPod content of each to students on the Internet. My YouTube channel can be seen at the following URL - http://www.youtube.com/user/oharow?feature=mhee.

I am also the Director for Undergraduate Research at OSU where I organize and oversee programs to expand research opportunities for undergraduate students. I am the Head Advisor of Biochemistry/Biophysics students, the pre-med advisor for all Biochemistry/Biophysics students, and a pre-med advisor for selected students in other majors. I direct OSU's Summer Undergraduate Research Program, funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and serve on curriculum committees for Biochemistry/Biophysics and the College of Science. I am also OSU's campus representative for the Goldwater Scholarship.

Besides my efforts at OSU, I had a separate career for over 25 years as a science writer/editor. This included stints as a contributing editor to BioTechniques from 2004 to 2011 (wrote the monthly WebWatch column), Genetic Engineering News from 1997 to 2009 (wrote the "on the Web" column), and Science magazine from 1998 to 2003 (software reviews in the Compass section). I served for 12 years as editor of BIOTECHNOLOGY SOFTWARE & INTERNET JOURNAL. I was an author on the Biochemistry textbook (Mathews, Van Holde, and Ahern), published by Addison-Wesley Longman in 2000 and provided the material for the General Resources pages of Science Magazine's Online Functional Genomics Web Page. I am the creator of the Metabolic Melodies, a series of biochemistry-related lyrics I wrote to popular melodies. I am also a co-author on a new electronic textbook called "Biochemistry Free and Easy" and another book called "Kevin and Indira's Guide to Getting Into Medical School." Both of these books can be downloaded for free at http://biochem.science.oregonstate.edu/biochemistry-free-and-easy