Workshop speaker

Agnes Ayme-Southgate, PhD

Professor of Biology at the College of Charleston

After completing my PhD at the University of Geneva, in Geneva Switzerland, I moved to the United States for a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT. My mentor was Dr. Mary Lou Pardue, at the time a leader in the Drosophila community.

I arrived at the College of Charleston in August 1999 as an Assistant Professor. I obtained tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in 2005, and full professorship in 2013. My research interest lies in the control of alternative splicing and its effect on the modulation of muscle activity. I used several model insect species, including honeybee, moth, and dragonflies. These projects are part of ongoing collaborations both internal and external. I was one of the coPI on the INBRE award to the College of Charleston and secure an NIH-AREA grant following the INBRE support.

The progression to full professorship was not without some bumps and reset, but through it all a few lessons and guiding principles became part of my “tool set”. Being at the College of Charleston, I have a regular 9 credits teaching load per semester, as well as the expectation to train undergraduate students in my research lab. My teaching rotates between Genetics, Molecular Biology and developmental Biology, both lecture and labs. One of the approaches that has enabled me to be successful has been to fully integrate my research projects into the laboratory classes that I teach, particularly the Molecular and Developmental Biology labs.