Rate My Professor Cindy White

Cindy White, Ph.D., serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences at Harding University. She earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Colorado State University in 2003, focusing her dissertation on crystallographic studies in transcriptional regulation within a chromatin context. Prior to this, she obtained an M.S. in Biochemistry from Colorado State University in 1999 and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Tennessee at Martin in 1998, graduating summa cum laude. White joined Harding University in 2012 as Associate Professor, advancing to full Professor in 2022 and assuming the role of Department Chair in 2019. Her earlier career includes serving as Full-time Instructor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado from 2004 to 2012, where she taught genetics, cellular and molecular biology, and introductory biology. She also held instructor and teaching assistant positions in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Colorado State University from 1999 to 2004, and at the University of Tennessee at Martin from 1996 to 1998.

White's academic interests and research specializations include protein structure and function, transcriptional regulation in chromatin, X-ray crystallography, and molecular biology techniques. During her doctoral studies, she investigated nucleosome core particle structures and internucleosome interactions. At Harding, her projects involve characterizing the fat mobilizing substance (FMS) in urine from fasting humans, rats, and lipodystrophy patients using HPLC, and developing wastewater treatment methods for the International Space Station via photocatalysis with titanium dioxide and UV light to combat biofilms, funded by the NASA Space Grant Consortium. Select publications are "ZnO nanostructures by hot water treatment for photocatalytic bacterial disinfection" (MRS Advances, 2022), "Nucleosome Core Particles Containing a Poly(dA · dT) Sequence Element Exhibit a Locally Distorted DNA Structure" (Journal of Molecular Biology, 2006), "Structure of the yeast nucleosome core particle reveals fundamental changes in internucleosome interactions" (EMBO Journal, 2001), and several others on nucleosome structures from 2001 to 2004. She actively mentors undergraduate researchers, with student projects presented at events like the NASA National Space Grant Celebration in Washington, D.C. (2020) and Arkansas INBRE conferences. White contributes to institutional service as a member of the Faculty Welfare Committee (2019-2022) and Vice-President/President Elect on the Faculty Leadership Council for Arts and Sciences.