An article on UNC’s Campaign website outlines the success of Carolina Covenant’s Rural Medicine Pathway Program. The Rural Medicine Pathway Program supports Covenant Scholars as they pursue health careers in rural areas. UNC Biology’s own Drs. Jean and Peter DeSaix helped found the program and were mentioned in the article by a student: “‘I had so much support from mentors like Jean and Peter DeSaix,’ Aslam said. ‘We would have meetings at their house and they would give me great advice about different opportunities that were available or how to connect and network with people in the medical profession.’”

Read the full article here: https://campaign.unc.edu/story/creating-a-pathway/.

UNC undergraduate alumnus Will Larsen has been featured on the UNC Center for Galapagos Studies’ website for his work in the Galapagos Islands! Read the full profile here: https://galapagos.unc.edu/how-one-unc-undergrad-merged-science-with-the-great-outdoors-in-the-galapagos/

The Copenhaver lab, including postdoctoral associate Dr. Jiyue (Jeff) Huang, has published a paper in PNAS entitled “Regulation of interference-sensitive crossover distribution ensures crossover assurance in Arabidopsis” together with their colleagues from Fudan University in Shanghai. The paper explores how the physical exchange of DNA between chromosomes during sexual reproduction is regulated at a genomic scale in plants. The research provides new insights into fundamental reproductive mechanisms that are shared broadly by animals, fungi and plants.

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2107543118

Dr. Catherine Kehl (Postdoc, Taylor Lab) asked her BIOL 222 students to utilize Matplotlib (python’s central plotting / graphing library) to make art. BIOL 222 is Introduction to Programming and is meant for students with no programming background with an emphasis on practical hands on learning. The theme for the assignment was Halloween. To see some great examples, CHECK OUT THE MATPLOTLIB BLOG

Dr. Bill Kier has been featured in an article in the December issue of Scientifc American. “Movie-making Tech Reveals Elephant Trunk Motions,” quotes Dr. Kier, “It’s the first time that we’ve gotten a hint of what these more simplified commands might be in elephants,” says William Kier, a biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who studies trunk, tongue and tentacle movement and was not a part of the study. “I think it is a pretty important advance.” You can read more at SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Dr. Ann Matthysse has been featured in Open Access Government, in an exploration of viruses for middle school students.

Read more HERE

Undergraduate Research is a point of pride in the Biology Department. Each semester, over 180 undergraduates do supervised research in Biology for academic credit.

Some of these seniors go on to do a Senior Honors Thesis. These truly outstanding students must complete a research project of considerable depth and significance and give an oral presentation at our Koeppe Biology Undergraduate Honors Research Symposium.

These students have earned the Distinction of Highest Honors or Honors in Fall 2021.

Highest Honors:
Angel Scialdone
Sabrina Yang

Honors:
Andrew Burciu
Cinthya Plazas
Khushmi Shah
Vaishnavi Siripurapu
Emma Welter
Yeofang Zhong

Congratulations!

See photo for names. Initiates includes biology majors and biology minors. Congratulations on all of your hard work!!!

Dr. Allen Hurlbert has been featured in UNC’s The Well for his work on the Avian Diet Database, “the first comprehensive online database of North American bird diets to standardize data and streamline research.”

Read the full article here!

The 2021 Hettleman Talks will take place virtually on Tuesday, November 9th at 12pm as part of University Research week. Please register at https://researchweek.unc.edu/event/hettleman-talks/ to receive the zoom link.

Attend these TEDX-style presentations from the 2021 winners of the Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prizes for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement – one of the most distinguished awards our early-career faculty can receive. The talks will provide an engaging look into these distinguished early career scholars’ work in the fields of astronomy, biology, communications, and public health equity.

This year’s Hettleman Prize awardees are:

Nicholas Law
Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy
“The Entire Sky Every Second: UNC’s New High-Speed Telescopes”

Alice Marwick
Associate Professor in the Department of Communication
“Morally-Motivated Networked Harassment as Normative Reinforcement”

Daniel Matute
Associate Professor in the Department of Biology
“The Origins of Biological Diversity”

Cleo Samuel-Ryals
Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management
“Getting into Good Trouble: Centering Racial Equity in Cancer Care Quality”