Congratulations to Sabrina Burmeister, who recently received a Mid-Career Award from the NSF IOS program! The award will support her research on functional genomics of spatial memory in poison frogs.
Learn more about Dr. Burmeister’s work here.
Special thanks to Tony Perdue, who is retiring after having run Biology’s Microscopy Core since 1992. Maintaining/acquiring cutting-edge microscopes, training/mentoring hundreds of postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates, his legacy will live on in the cell biologists around the globe who trained in his facility.
Lewis Naisbett-Jones, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Biology, has been featured in an article for UNC’s Endeavors for his research on satellite telemetry to track the migrations of sheepshead fish near the North Carolina coast. Congratulations, Lewis!
From the article: “Commercial and recreational fishing are important contributors to the North Carolina economy, but there are still lots of unknowns about many fish species. UNC–Chapel Hill PhD student Lewis Naisbett-Jones is trying to unravel some of that mystery by tracking the migration of one popular species in the fishing community: sheepshead.”
Read the full article here.
UNC Biology Ph.D. students, Esteban Agudo and Savannah Ryburn have been featured on the website for the Center for Galapagos Studies. Congratulations, Esteban and Savannah!
The website post, called “UNC PhD students turn challenges of pandemic into opportunities in Galapagos,” gives detailed profiles of both Esteban and Savannah, as well as the work they have been doing with the UNC Center for Galapagos Studies. Read the full article here.
Congratulations to Dr. Daniel Matute, one of the winners of the 2021 Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prizes for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement. According to the announcement, “The annual Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prizes for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement have been awarded to four promising faculty members who exemplify groundbreaking and innovative research along with future career promise.” Along with Dr. Matute, Dr. Nicholas Law (Physics and Astronomy), Dr. Alice Marwick (Communication), and Dr. Cleo Samuel-Ryals (Health Policy and Management) also won the award. Congratulations, Dr. Matute!
UNC Biology graduate students Isabel Silva Romero and Diego Urquía have been featured in the UNC Grad School Magazine. The article, “Passion for the Galapagos Brings Universidad San Francisco de Quito Alumni to Chapel Hill as Graduate Students,” describes the students’ journey from Universidad San Francisco de Quito to UNC-Chapel Hill. Congratulations, Isabel and Diego!
From the article: “Two incoming Ph.D. students share a love for South America and for the intricate ecosystems and wildlife that support it. Isabel Silva Romero and Diego Urquía are joining the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as international students thanks to a longstanding connection between UNC Center for Galapagos Studies and Universidad San Francisco de Quito, where the pair completed their undergraduate studies.”
For detailed profiles of the two students, read the article here.
Congratulations to UNC Biology’s own undergraduate student, Ahmed Belghith, who has been selected as one of 15 students in the nation to be a UGSP Scholar with NIH! According to Teaching Assistant Professor Eric Hastie, this is extremely prestigious and includes a scholarship, summer internship, and one-year employment opportunities after graduation. Check out the program’s website here: https://www.training.nih.gov/programs/ugsp
Delaney O’Connell, a Ph.D. student in Brian Taylor’s lab, has been featured in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. “A computational framework for studying energetics and resource management in sea turtle migration and autonomous systems” is O’Connell’s first publication as a graduate student. Congratulations, Delaney!
Some of the article’s highlights include, “Evaluated migration performance for a variety of tracking tags, demonstrates the effects of tracking tags on the ability to navigate and forage, demonstrates energy usage and path efficiency for different tracking tags, findings and software can aid in development of field work studies.” The paper also features collaborations with four principal investigators: UNC Biology’s Brian Taylor, Susan Piacenza (Department of Biology – University of West Florida), Joseph Piacenza (Mechanical Engineering – University of West Florida), and John Faller II (Computer Engineering Program – California State University: Fullerton).
Read the full article here.
UNC Biology graduate student Emily Harmon has been awarded the 2021 Howard McCarley Research Award from the Southwestern Association of Naturalists (SWAN). Congratulations, Emily!
From the press release: “The Southwestern Association of Naturalists is pleased to announce that graduate student Emily Harmon was presented with a 2021 Howard McCarley Student Research Award for her research project entitled “The role of parental environment in shaping phenotypes.” Emily is pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Biology with her major advisor, Dr. David Pfennig, Professor. The Southwestern Association of Naturalists is an international association of scientists, educators, and students, founded in 1953 to promote the field study of plants and animals (living and fossil) in the southwestern United States, Mexico, and Central America. The award was announced at the annual meeting held virtually in April.”
Congratulations to Professor Joel Kingsolver‘s lab for their feature in UNC Endeavors. From the “Caterpillars in the Coal Mine” article: “Butterflies and moths are indicators of the overall health of an ecosystem. Through fieldwork, lab experiments, and computer modeling, researchers in the Joel Kingsolver Lab strive to understand how changing temperatures are impacting the relationship between certain species and the plants they live on.”
Check it out here.