USU Biochemist Named Distinguished Graduate by Alma Mater

Utah State University biochemistry professor Steven D. Aust recently received Washington State University’s Distinguished Graduate Award in Science, Education and Technology. He will be honored in an April 13 ceremony at WSU.

“I am really pleased to receive this acknowledgement,” says Aust. “I do hope that Washington State is pleased with the way one of its students turned out.”

 

Aust, who joined USU in 1987 as the director of the Center of Excellence in Biotechnology and has served on the faculty of USU’s Chemistry/Biochemistry Department for 20 years, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from Washington State in 1960 and earned a master’s degree from WSU two years later.

 

WSU recognizes alumni with the Distinguished Graduate award who have made outstanding contributions to science, teaching, industry and the development and transfer of technology.

 

Aust thanks his professors at WSU, in particular his advisor, Tim Blosser, along with his parents, who “instilled within me the desire for knowledge and understanding.”

 

“My father encouraged me to leave the farm and see the world, which I have had the opportunity to do mostly because of the worldwide interest in the results of my research,” Aust says. “But I also learned that the most important thing in life is to pass on that of which we are most proud. I am most proud of the many students I have had in the laboratory who are making wonderful and exciting contributions. This award is just as much for them as for me.”

 

Aust is an internationally recognized expert on the metabolism of iron and the biological degradation of environmental pollutants by white rot fungi. His various research endeavors have been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy and numerous private corporations. Aust holds six patents and has published more than 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals, 20 invited review articles, 60 conference proceedings articles, contributed to 10 handbooks and has been cited in more than 4,000 papers, giving him an H-index of 56 – a measurement of the worldwide impact of his research.

 

Aust’s list of honors is long and distinguished. He received the Kenneth A. Spencer Award from the American Chemical Society in 2005. In 2002, he was awarded the Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology, the state of Utah’s highest honor for scientific achievement, from then Gov. Mike Leavitt. Other honors include an Alumni Achievement Award from WSU in 1997, fellowships in The Oxygen Society in 1994 and the Academy of Toxicology Sciences in 1992 and the DuPont Science and Engineering award in 1988.

 

At USU, Aust received the 2003 D. Wynne Thorne Researcher of the Year award, the university’s highest research honor, and, that same year, was named the University Outstanding Graduate Mentor. He has mentored 18 master’s students, 34 doctoral students and 16 postdoctoral researchers.

 

Aust earned a doctorate in dairy science from the University of Illinois in 1965 and conducted postdoctoral research in toxicology at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute. Prior to joining Utah State, Aust served as a biochemistry professor and director of a research center at Michigan State University.

 

 

Contact: Steven Aust [sdaust@cc.usu.edu]; 435-797-2730