Featured Speaker

Dr. Jeff Becker

Dr. Jeffrey M. Becker is Chancellor’s Professor and head of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Becker’s research involves the study of peptide hormones and their receptors, membrane transporters, and fungal virulence. He has trained more than 30 doctoral students who hold faculty or staff positions at many major institutions, has published more than 240 peer-reviewed articles, and has been awarded grants for research from many national agencies. He currently holds a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant in its 33rd year of continuous funding. Becker is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He serves on the NIH Drug Discovery and Mechanisms of Antimicrobial Resistance Study Section, on the editorial board of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, and as associate editor of the journal Microbiology. Becker has been a consultant to the pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly, Merck, and SmithKline-Beecham.