Dr. M. Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean of engineering, has appointed Dr. Arul Jayaraman head of the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University. The appointment was effective June 1.
Jayaraman has served as the interim department head since June 2019, and served as acting department head from March–May 2019. Prior to that, he served as associate department head, director of the graduate program, and chair of graduate admissions and recruiting. Jayaraman is currently the holder of the Ray B. Nesbitt Endowed Chair and a Texas A&M University Presidential Impact Fellow. He also serves as the director of the Integrated Metabolomic Analysis Core facility. He was elected fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering in 2015.
Jayaraman’s research focuses on studying the role of the intestinal microbiota, specifically, the diverse array of molecules produced by them, as mediators of human health and medicine. Jayaraman’s research has led to several breakthroughs in the understanding of intestinal microbiota. In 2018, Jayaraman and his collaborators found that a high-fat diet significantly changes the composition and function of the intestinal microbiota, and that this change has a direct link to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Jayaraman and collaborators at Tufts University have identified a role for the gut bacteria in converting phthalates into toxic molecules that are linked to neurological disorders. More recently, Jayaraman and Dr. Pushkar Lele, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, uncovered a previously unknown property of gut microbiota-produced molecule, leading to a better understanding of how microbial communities form in the gut.