Barbara GowerTwo faculty members in the Department of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are among 23 recipients of the 2015 Scientist, Clinician, Educator/Mentor & Young Investigator Awards given by the American Society of Nutrition.

Barbara A. Gower, Ph.D., has received the Dannon Institute Mentorship Award, supported by the Dannon Institute, in the category of Senior Investigator – Educator & Mentor Awards.

In the category of Young Investigator Awards, Daniel L. Smith Jr., Ph.D., has received the Bio-Serv Award in Experimental Animal Nutrition, supported by Bio-Serv Inc.

Gower and Smith, along with the other award winners, will be recognized in a ceremony Sunday, March 29, during the ASN Scientific Sessions and Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Daniel Smith“The work of these scientists, from young investigators to lifelong researchers, has helped advance the field in leaps and bounds. I couldn’t be more pleased to honor these individuals,” said ASN President Simin Nikbin Meydani, DVM, Ph.D.

Gower, who is professor and vice chair for Research in the Department of Nutrition Sciences and an associate scientist in the Nutrition Obesity Research Center, focuses on obesity and energy metabolism, with an emphasis on insulin secretion/action and the role of the endocrine system. Her ongoing research is directed toward understanding the physiologic basis for the greater prevalence of type 2 diabetes among African-Americans in both children and adults.

Smith is an assistant professor in the department whose research looks at the interaction of nutrition and metabolism in relation to aging and disease. He is interested in topics including obesity, calorie restriction, calorie restriction mimetics, brown adipose tissue, ulcerative dermatitis in C57BL/6 mice, and systems biology of aging using budding yeast chronological lifespan.

TheBestSchools.org recently acknowledged the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s online Bachelor of Science in Accounting degree as its pick as the nation’s best.

This Collat School of Business online program features the same award-winning faculty who teach in campus classrooms. In addition, UAB’s online bachelor’s accounting degree program allows students to roll credits directly to the master’s in accounting degree program and fast-track their time to complete it.

The program prepares students for the Certified Management Accountant, Certified Internal Auditor and Certified Fraud Examiner exams.

UAB’s online accounting programs are nationally accredited, and the university is among an elite group of only 176 universities worldwide to achieve the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business seal of excellence in both business and accounting.

D’Ann Somerall, DNP, assistant professor in UAB’s School of Nursing, has been selected by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners to receive the Alabama State Award for Excellence.

The AANP selects one nurse practitioner from each state for this award annually. It recognizes outstanding achievements by nurse practitioners and nurse practitioner advocates.

Somerall was nominated for her advocacy for prescriptive authority for scheduled medications. She has participated on a task force with the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners and the Nurse Practitioner Alliance of Alabama to develop the rules and regulations for nurse practitioners to prescribe scheduled drugs. Somerall has also served on a Board of Medical Examiners task force to develop rules for telemedicine in Alabama.

Somerall holds bachelor’s, master’s and Doctor of Nursing Practice degrees from the UAB School of Nursing. She is an innovative distance education faculty member in the family nurse practitioner program. She has strong interests in women’s health and providing care for indigent populations.

The mission of AANP, a full-service national professional membership organization for nurse practitioners of all specialties, is to lead nurse practitioners in transforming patient-centered health care.