Carol Wilkins, 2018-19 Lilly Fellow
Carol Wilkins graduated with a B.S. in chemistry from St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana. She received her Ph.D. in biochemistry here at MSU. Wilkins has been teaching at MSU, even as a post-doc, since 1998. In 2005, she was hired as an instructor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the College of Osteopathic Medicine (COM). Wilkins is now an associate professor and teaches primarily in COM, as well as teaching in some of the undergraduate biochemistry courses. Wilkins is the Semester 2 Director for COM, which coordinates the 7 courses, including integrated exams, taught in the Fall semester for first-year COM medical students. She also teaches a two-semester graduate online course series for the Biomedical Laboratory Diagnostics program.
Wilkins recently published a textbook called Understanding Biochemical Pathways: A Pattern-Recognition Approach, which will be used in her Lilly research project. Her students find it humorous that she incorporate cat pictures into lectures. This started as a joke when she named two enzymes that are commonly abbreviated CAT I and CAT II after her two cats to help the students remember them.
Wilkins lives in Holt with her husband, David, and her 9-year-old son, Brett.