Congratulations to Dan Ruiz on this UNC Endeavors article! Check out this amazing Chancellor Science Scholar and one of UNC Biology’s amazing undergraduates at this link: https://endeavors.unc.edu/dain-ruiz/
A big (belated!) congratulations to all our May 2021 Biology Ph.D. graduates! This is a huge accomplishment and the department would like to extend our appreciation for all your hard work over the years. We wish you the best of luck in your next phase of life!
Kevin Cannon (Gladfelter lab)
Therese Gerbich (Gladfelter lab)
Pranav Khandelwal (Hedrick lab)
Jeeyun Lee (Willett lab)
Megan Elizabeth Moore (Kingsolver lab)
Bryan Reatini (Vision lab)
Andrew Willoughby, a Ph.D. student in Zachary Nimchuk’s lab, has had their first review paper published in Current Opinion in Plant Biology. Congratulations, Andrew!
From Andrew’s Twitter: “My first review paper just published about CLE signaling in plant development! This link is good to view/download the paper for 50 days without needing to have access to the journal (which I don’t even have).” Check out the article here.
UNC Department of Biology’s own Professor Mark Peifer has been featured in Molecular Biology of the Cell’s Voices section. The article, titled “Looking back on a life of unacknowledged privilege and a call to action,” discusses Peifer’s reflections on systemic racism. According to Peifer, “The past year helped further open my eyes and those of many of us to the underlying systemic racism of our nation and our scientific community. That stimulated a process of reflection for me about the role unperceived privilege has played in my life and career, and the responsibilities I feel I have as a result. I wanted to share this, in the hope it will encourage others to take the time for self-reflection.” Congratulations, Mark!
Read the article here.
The UNC College of Arts and Sciences featured Biology’s own Lillie Searles in an article called “A 30-year odyssey from fruit fly eye color to new insights into gene expression.” Congratulations, Professor Emeritus Searles!
Read the article here!
Dr. Amy Maddox‘s lab’s publication has been accepted to Molecular Biology of the cell, a peer-reviewed journal owned by the American Society for Cell Biology. The publication is from a former undergraduate student and current postdoc. Dr. Maddox tweeted, “Septins are required for anaphase chiral cortical rotation in the C. elegans zygote, and the formin CYK-1 is required not for rotation but for its direction.” Congratulations!
Drs. Kerry S. Bloom, Joe Kieber, and Ted Salmon have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Congratulations, all!
From the website: “The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a private, non-profit society of distinguished scholars. Established by an Act of Congress, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the NAS is charged with providing independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology. Scientists are elected by their peers to membership in the NAS for outstanding contributions to research. The NAS is committed to furthering science in America, and its members are active contributors to the international scientific community. Approximately 500 current and deceased members of the NAS have won Nobel Prizes, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, founded in 1914, is today one of the premier international journals publishing the results of original research.”
The Biology Undergraduate Awards Committee met last week to select this year’s Awardees. It was a tough task and required much deliberation, as all of the students did an outstanding job. Here are the awards recipients:
Kylie VanDerMolen has been awarded the Francis LeClair Award. This award is given to a senior biology major for research and academic excellence in biology with an emphasis on plant sciences. VanDerMolen was mentored by Zack Nimchuk and her thesis is called “Natural variability in clv2 phenotypes.” Congratulations, Kylie!
Sloan Fussell and Viren Baharani were awarded the Stephen Brantley Awards. These awards are given to two senior biology majors for excellence in research in molecular, cell, and developmental Biology. Fussell was mentored by Alexander Kabanov and he completed his thesis on macrophage polarization and drug delivery. Baharani was mentored by Helen Lazear and completed his thesis on viral cross-reactivity. Congratulations, Sloan and Viren!
Sebastian Nichols has been awarded the RE Coker Award. This award is given to a senior biology major for excellence in research in organismal biology and ecology. Nichols was mentored by Brian Taylor and his thesis is called “Bioinspired Navigation Based on Distributed Sensing in the Leech.” Congratulations, Sebastian!
Dan Meyers was awarded the John Couch Award. This award is given to a senior biology major with interests in plant biology or mycology who has demonstrated the highest ideals of scholarship and research. Meyers was mentored by NCBG Herbarium Associate “Van” Cotter. Congratulations, Dan!
Mark Peifer and the Biology Department gives special thanks to Amy Maddox who mentored the students writing and defending Undergraduate Honors theses, all faculty, students, and postdocs who mentored research students this year, all who evaluated written theses and talks, the Biology Undergraduate Awards Committee (Amy Maddox, Ty Hedrick, Gidi Shemer, and Steve Rogers), and, of course, Summer Montgomery who manages all things undergraduate and whose help and guidance makes our major run.
Congratulations, Gladfelter Lab!
The Feature, titled “Filamentous fungus Ashbya gossypii” describes one of the Gladfelter Lab’s videos that shows a “busy structure with wavy, thin branches dotted with sparkling pearls” (pictured right).
Ashbya gossypii is among the fungi that the Gladfelter lab studies. It’s a plant pathogen that’s closely related to the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a well-known model organism.
You can view the feature here.
Eric Hastie and Laura Ott awarded funding by UNC IAH for their TikTok Biology @ UNC project!
For this project, they will examine the implementation of the new #Learnon TikTok approach to teaching 2 courses – BIOL 101H and BIOL 205 in fall 2021. Students in these courses will develop new TikTok videos, covering core biological concepts that serve as a foundation for students’ experiences within the biology major. They will assess if student access to/watching of these TikTok videos promotes student learning.