New institutional commercial highlights tradition, innovation shaping the Auburn experience

Auburn University’s 2026 nationally televised commercial celebrates the spirit and traditions of the Auburn Family while highlighting the university’s academic excellence, expanding research enterprise and an unrivaled student experience.

The 30-second spot showcases work from five colleges and will reach audiences through NCAA athletics broadcasts and Auburn’s digital and social platforms.

It will make its national television debut Sept. 5 when Auburn faces Baylor to open the 2026 football season at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The game will air on ABC at 2:30 p.m. CT.

The images move quickly, but each shot contains a much larger story.

College of Education: Data on the diamond

Plainsman Park is more than the home of Auburn Baseball. It also serves as one of the College of Education’s School of Kinesiology research labs.

The Sports Medicine and Movement Laboratory partners with Auburn Baseball to operate a markerless 3D motion-capture system. Cameras positioned from the field to the bullpen track player movement and produce precise biomechanical data.

The cameras capture every pitch and swing during home games, generating an enormous amount of data. Collecting it, however, is only the first step. Student researchers work alongside Auburn Baseball staff to translate the numbers into insights that help coaches compare mechanics, monitor fatigue, identify potential injury risks and support player development.

The partnership gives students hands-on experience with the type of biomechanics research conducted at the highest levels of baseball while providing coaches with another tool to enhance performance and help prevent injuries.

Led by Gretchen Oliver, a fellow of the National Academy of Kinesiology, the collaboration turns one of Auburn’s most recognizable playing fields into a place of discovery.

Samuel Ginn College of Engineering: Building breakthroughs from living tissue

By developing new laboratory models of human disease, Auburn engineers are accelerating biomedical discovery, drug development and personalized medicine.

Elizabeth Lipke, professor of chemical engineering, is developing new methods to engineer human heart and cancer tissues. Her work gives scientists more powerful and reliable tools to study disease and test potential therapies.

Combining biomaterials, microtissue engineering and advanced cell manufacturing, Lipke is transforming how researchers model complex biological systems and evaluate treatments before they reach patients.

Her contributions to biomedical engineering earned her election as a 2026 fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the scientific community’s most distinguished honors.

College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment: Aerial advantage

Across Auburn’s College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment, drones equipped with artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technologies are transforming environmental monitoring and management.

Faculty members including Zutao Ouyang, Jo Daniel, Richard Cristan and Lana Narine use drones in their research to measure methane emissions, track land-use changes, map forests, detect threats to forest health, assess storm damage, estimate soil erosion, improve timber inventories and monitor emissions from prescribed fires.

Under the guidance of Stephen Ditchkoff, undergraduate and graduate researchers also are testing thermal drones to improve estimates of white-tailed deer populations and explore new approaches to wildlife management.

Auburn teaching and Extension programs are placing the technology in the hands of students, landowners and natural resource professionals, providing experience with tools that are reshaping how people understand and manage the environment.

From wildlife below to forests stretching across the horizon, Auburn researchers are finding new answers by looking from above.

College of Liberal Arts: Staging stories

Innovation at Auburn does not always happen in a lab. Sometimes, it takes shape under the stage lights.

In Auburn’s Department of Theatre and Dance, storytelling fosters dialogue, transforms perspectives and inspires change.

The department’s 2026 production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” brought students, faculty and staff together for one of its boldest productions in recent memory. Faculty members Danielle Curtis and Jennifer Salter guided students as they combined lighting, costume design and technology to bring the production to life.

A strong faculty-to-student ratio and hands-on training in classrooms, rehearsal halls and production spaces provide students with personalized mentorship as they develop their craft.

The goal extends beyond preparing students for the stage. Auburn Theatre and Dance develops thoughtful, creative citizen artists equipped to advocate for the arts and contribute to communities around the world.

College of Sciences and Mathematics: Pulse and perception

In Auburn’s College of Sciences and Mathematics, a pulse of laser light can reveal the hidden potential within everyday materials.

Chris Grieco, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and his students use laser spectroscopy to understand how materials behave and what new possibilities they may hold. Their research spans conducting polymers with potential applications in flexible and biomedical electronics as well as asphaltenes, carbon-rich molecules found in petroleum that Grieco describes as “ancient materials” with possible modern uses.

Using ultrashort pulses of light, the researchers track physical and chemical processes occurring within materials at extraordinary speeds. Grieco compares the technique to high-speed photography, allowing the team to better understand how molecular structure affects the movement of energy, electrical charge and ions.

Graduate students play a central role in the discovery process. They develop experiments, troubleshoot unexpected results and take ownership of the scientific questions before them, gaining firsthand experience in what it takes to advance research.

Whether studying a flexible polymer or a material with origins millions of years ago, Grieco and his students use light to uncover new possibilities within familiar materials.

Together, these five stories show Auburn students learning where discovery happens, whether it is on the field, in the laboratory, across the landscape and under the stage lights. They are not simply studying ideas but working alongside faculty to test them, apply them and use them to make a meaningful difference. An Auburn education is defined not only by what students learn, but by what they are prepared to do with it.