About

Megan A. Macnaughtan

Photograph of Megan Macnaughtan and a stuffed animal Mike the Tiger    Associate Professor
   Department of Chemistry
   Louisiana State University
   Baton Rouge, LA 70803-1804
   Phone: 225-578-7975
   Fax: 225-578-3458
   E-mail: macnau@lsu.edu
   Office: Choppin 437

Biography

Dr. Megan A. Macnaughtan, a native of New Martinsville, West Virginia, received her B.S. in Chemistry (with a minor in Mathematics) from Ohio University in 1998. She earned her doctorate in Analytical Chemistry in 2003 at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Macnaughtan then worked for four years at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center at the University of Georgia with James Prestegard. In 2008 she joined the Chemistry Department at Louisiana State University as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015. Macnaughtan is an expert in bioanalytical nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Her research investigates the structural conformations of proteins, complex carbohydrates, and enzyme-bound substrate. Her work on Notch1 EGF domains and Scc4 (formerly CT663), a Chlamydia trachomatis chaperone protein, has been funded by NSF and NIH. She is married to Aaron Smith, who is a Full Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Louisiana State University. They have a sixteen-year old son, Samuel, and a twelve-year old daughter, Suzanna.

Selected Honors, Awards, and Funding

  • NSF BIO-2019046: MRI: Acquisition of a solid/liquid-state 700 MHz NMR instrument for the Southeast, 2020 – 2023
  • NIH R15 GM109413: Structural switching of the bifunctional Chlamydia trachomatis protein, Scc4, 2014 – present
  • NSF CHE-1413576: Glycosylation and calcium as a code for tandem EGF-like repeat structure and dynamics, 2014 – 2018
  • LSU Graduate Teaching Award, 2018
  • LSU Tiger Athletic Foundation Undergraduate Teaching Award, 2015
  • LSU Biomedical Collaborative Research Program (LBCRP): Mechanisms of sigma66-RNAP: CT663-mediated transcriptional regulation, PIs: Megan Macnaughtan (LSU A&M) and Li Shen (LSUHSC-NO), 2015 – 2017
  • Eastern Analytical Symposium New Faculty Award in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, 2014
  • National Institute of Health Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00), 2007 – 2013
  • Purdue Research Foundation Graduate Fellowship, Purdue University, 2002 – 2003
  • M. G. Mellon Award in Analytical Chemistry, Dept. of Chemistry, Purdue University, 2001 – 2002
  • Pfizer Graduate Research Fellowship in Analytical Chemistry, Pfizer Global Research & Development, 2001 – 2002
  • National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, Dept. of Defense, 1998 – 2001