Rate My Professor Cindy White

Cindy White, Ph.D., serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, a position she has held since 2019. She supervises department activities including personnel and student issues, course and faculty scheduling, budgets, curriculum development, chemical ordering, and strategic visioning, while teaching lecture and laboratory courses in biochemistry and general chemistry. White advanced to full Professor in 2022, following her tenure as Associate Professor from 2012 to 2022. Prior to Harding, she was a Full-time Instructor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado from 2002 to 2004, where she taught genetics, cellular and molecular biology, and introductory biology, overseeing graduate teaching assistants. She also instructed undergraduate laboratory classes in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Colorado State University from 2004 to 2006, and served as a teaching assistant there from 1999 to 2000 and at the University of Tennessee at Martin from 1996 to 1998. Her academic background includes a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Colorado State University (2003), with a dissertation titled 'Crystallographic Studies in Transcriptional Regulation in a Chromatin Context'; an M.S. in Biochemistry from Colorado State University (1999); and a B.S. in Chemistry (major) with a minor in Biology from the University of Tennessee at Martin (1998, Summa Cum Laude).

Dr. White's research specializations encompass biochemistry, molecular biology, cellular biology, genetics, protein structure and function, transcriptional regulation, and X-ray crystallography techniques including atomic absorption, fluorescence resonance energy transfer, protein expression and purification, DNA cloning, and chromatography. Her doctoral research examined cellular gene accessibility and transcription in a chromatin context through X-ray crystallography, FRET, and protein complex analysis. At Harding University, she has led projects identifying the fat mobilizing substance (FMS) hormone/protein in urine from fasting humans, rats, and lipodystrophy patients; developing wastewater treatment methods for the International Space Station using titanium dioxide and UV light for bacterial disinfection against biofilms; and optimizing plant growth in Martian and lunar regolith for space missions nutritional content. Key publications include 'ZnO nanostructures by hot water treatment for photocatalytic bacterial disinfection' (MRS Advances, 2022, with Hariharalakshmanan et al.); 'Nucleosome Core Particles Containing a Poly (dAdT) Sequence Element Exhibit a Locally Distorted DNA Structure' (Journal of Molecular Biology, 2006, with Bao and Luger); 'Defined structural changes occur in a nucleosome upon Amt1 transcription factor binding' (Journal of Molecular Biology, 2004, with Luger); 'Structure of the yeast nucleosome core particle reveals fundamental changes in internucleosome interactions' (EMBO Journal, 2001, with Suto and Luger); and several co-authored works on nucleosome core particles and histone interactions (2001–2004). She has mentored students in numerous presentations at NASA National Space Grant events, Arkansas INBRE Research Conferences, STEM Posters at the Capitol, and others, focusing on space flight disinfection and fat metabolism. White contributes to university service as Vice-President/President Elect of the Faculty Leadership Council representing Arts and Sciences and as a former member of the Faculty Welfare Committee (2019–2022).