Alvin Powers, M.D., professor of Medicine and Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, has been named to the American Diabetes Association Board of Directors.
The American Diabetes Association is the nation’s largest health association focused on preventing and curing diabetes.
Powers will serve a three-year term on the board, assisting with oversight of the association’s business affairs and working with volunteers and staff to support the organization’s mission.
Powers is the Joe C. Davis Professor of Biomedical Science, director of the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism and director of the Vanderbilt Diabetes Center. He joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1988.
His research focuses on understanding how glucose stimulates insulin secretion by pancreatic beta cells — and on characterizing and reversing the abnormalities in this process that are present in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Powers has been a member of the American Diabetes Association since 1986. He currently serves as chair of the association’s Research Policy Committee and as a member of the Research Foundation Board. He previously served on the Scientific Sessions Planning Committee and on the Finance Committee.