Congratulations to Kelly Hogan for being quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education! From the article: “Kelly Hogan, associate dean of instructional innovation in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, shared what’s happening in the biology department, where she’s a STEM teaching professor. ‘My co-instructor and I (and many of the faculty teaching the large intro courses in my department) have done testing online, open-notes all semester,’ Hogan writes. ‘We probably vary most in whether we give them a window of time to choose when to start the timed exam or whether it occurs only during the scheduled class time. We’ll all continue this for the final exam this semester.'”

Check out the full article here.

Congratulations to UNC graduate student Brian Lerch for being interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered! Lerch was interviewed about a study that he has out in Proceedings of the Royal Society with Susan Alberts from Duke University. The study found that “the fission of social groups in baboons is best described by egalitarian decisions where each community member contributes to the outcome, rather than decisions driven primarily by a single individual.”

Listen to the NPR segment here and read the article here.

Congratulations to UNC Biology’s own Jean and Peter DeSaix on their winning the first annual Clark Kessler Mentorship Award!

According to the announcement, “In honor of Fred Clark and Frank Kessler’s dedication to mentorship among our Carolina Covenant Scholars over the last seventeen years, we wanted to pay tribute to a mentor annually by creating an award known as the Clark Kessler Mentorship Award. This award will recognize mentors who go above and beyond in exhibiting the best characteristics of a strong mentoring relationship among our Covenant scholars, including but not limited to commitment, care, connection, initiative, and endorsement.” Congratulations!

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!