New Opportunities for Biology Students

This is an exciting time to be a Biology major. The department has been awarded a $1.6 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to create a new HHMI Undergraduate Science Program that is transforming the experience for undergraduates with new laboratory courses, research internships, and an undergraduate research symposium. We welcome you to participate and encourage you to take advantage of these new opportunities!

News & Announcements

Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Summer Research Interns
Congratulations to the 2008 Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Summer Research Internship recipients!

The following students were chosen to participate in the 2008 Summer Research Internship Program. They will be conducting full time research in their host labs and will receive a $3600 stipend for the summer.

Greg Brennan - Nambu Lab (Biology); Joseph Burbage - Stuart Lab (Microbiology); Scott Fay - Bezanilla lab (Biology); Chris Meaden - Lee Lab (Biology); David Paquette - Gierasch Lab (Biochemistry); Erin Parker - Downes Lab (Biology); Jerome Rogich - Garman Lab (Biochemistry); Mona Salameh - Caicedo Lab (Biology); Dimitri Steblovsky- Gierasch Lab (Biochemistry); Maryam Suberu - Jerry Lab (Vet. and Animal Sciences); Cornelius Taabazuing - Schnarr Lab (Chemistry); Pardeep Thandi - Thayumanavan Lab (Chemistry); Nikki Woodward - Hebert Lab (Biochemistry).

Undergraduate Receives Research Fellowship
Kelli Pattavia, an undergraduate Biology major working in Magdalena Bezanilla's lab, has won grant funding from the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) 2008 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program. The goal of the SURF program is to provide opportunities for students to pursue meaningful research in plant biology at their home institutions early in their college years. The program targets students who have just completed their sophomore year of their undergraduate studies. Kelli won for the project entitled Genotyping Moss ADF Overexpression Lines.

The SURF award includes $3,000 undergraduate student summer research funds, a one-year student membership to ASPB, and $500 for student travel to Plant Biology 2009 in Honolulu, HI. A $500 mentor stipend (which can include supplies from the mentor) is also awarded.

Research Highlighted in Science Daily
Research in Duncan Irschick's laboratory was recently featured on the front page of Science Daily, which features the most exciting work in all scientific fields. This research showed that lizards that were introduced to islands only 36 years ago have rapidly evolved new gut structures and feeding performance.

Natural History Collections Summer Scholarships Awarded
The second annual NHC summer scholarships were announced on April 2, 2008. The funding for these scholarships is provided by the Jane Hallenbeck Bemis Endowment for Research in Natural History and the David J. Klingener Endowment Fund. All students conducting collections-based research under the mentorship of a UMass faculty member or a faculty member associated with a life sciences graduate program were eligible to apply. This year we funded twelve students studying a wide variety of research topics:

Kristian Brevik (undergraduate, Hampshire College), "Preparation of an articulated dolphin skeleton" (mentor: Al Richmond, Biology, UMass Amherst). Nicole Soper Gordon (PhD student, PSIS) "Effects of a galling insect on pollination and herbivory of its host plant" (mentor: Lynne Adler, PSIS, UMass Amherst). Rodger Gwiazdowski (PhD Student, OEB and Entomology), "Cryptic species, phylogeography, host specialization, and evolution of parthenogenesis in pine scale insects across North America" (mentor: Ben Normark, PSIS, UMass Amherst). Lori Johnson (PhD student, Antioch University of New England), "The ecology of eastern musk turtle ecology in Massachusetts" (mentor: Al Richmond, Biology, UMass Amherst). Katherine Kauffman (PhD student, OEB), "The foraging behavior of razorbills (seabirds) at the southern limit of their range" (mentor: Paul Sievert, NRC, UMass Amherst). David McMillan (PhD student, OEB), "Geographic and seasonal variation in thermal tolerance in the western fence lizard, Scoloperus occidentalis" (mentor: Duncan Irschick, Biology, UMass Amherst). Adilia Nogueira, (PhD student, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, in Manaus, Brazil), "Three new species of Microsternarchus from the Negro River Basin, Amazon, Brazil" (mentor: Cristina Cox Fernandes, Biology, UMass Amherst). Emilienne Rasoazanabary (PhD student, Anthropology), "Stratigraphic and morphological analysis of mouse lemur jaws from Andrahomana Cave, Southeastern Madagascar" (mentor: Laurie Godfrey, Anthropology, UMass Amherst). Ariel Rodriguez and Jose Calderone (MS students, University of Costa Rica), "Morphological and Physiological adaptations of bats" (mentor: Betsy Dumont, Biology, UMass Amherst). Sharlene Santana (PhD student, OEB) "The Evolution of feeding habits and cranial morphology in neotropical leaf-nosed bats" (mentor: Betsy Dumont, Biology, UMass Amherst). Natalia Taft (PhD student, OEB), "Pectoral fin evolution in the malaculemorph fishes" (mentor: Cristina Cox Fernandes, Biology, UMass Amherst).

Graduate Student Wins Poster Contest
Sadie Bergeron, an MCB graduate student working in Rolf Karlstrom's lab, won first prize in the poster contest at the April 2008 Northeast Regional Meetings of the Society for Developmental Biology in Woods Hole. The prize was a $1000 travel award to attend the national meeting in Philadelphia this summer.

Poster will be on display in the hall near the Karlstrom lab in Morrill 2 . It's titled: "Umleitung/(Brother of CDO; boc) is required for RGC axon guidance and ventral CNS specification in the developing zebrafish embryo."

Graduate Student Receives Grant
OEB graduate student Justin Henningsen, who works in Duncan Irschick's lab, recently received an NSF predoctoral grant for $120,000 to conduct detailed studies on the role of the throatfan in dictating reproductive success and survival in green anole lizards. Justin will conduct field studies in Georgia on natural populations that he will be able to mark and follow over time and record details on processes of life, death, and birth.

Faculty Member Receives Grant
E. R. Dumont (Biology) and co-PI I. R. Grosse (Mechanical and Industrial Engineering) received a four-year, $982,633 grant from the National Science Foundation to support a new website called Biomesh, which teaches biologists how to study the behavior of biomechanical systems using the same computer modeling technique employed by engineers designing aircraft or bridges. Known as finite element analysis, this technique has revolutionized engineering, and has the potential to transform how biologists approach research in areas ranging from functional morphology and developmental biology to the study of evolution and cellular mechanics. Biomesh will support this learning experience by developing a shared digital resource collection of finite element models of biological systems. Biologists are just beginning to use finite element modeling to understand the biomechanical behavior of biological organs, tissues and even cells in both living and extinct organisms. Dumont research focus, for example, is how the physics involved in feeding has affected the evolution of diversity in mammals.

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