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.

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.

Ann G. Matthysse, from the University of North Carolina’s Department of Biology, delves into an exploration of harmful and useful bacteria for elementary school students.
Most people have heard of bacteria but know very little about them. In general, bacteria are considered by many people to be dangerous or harmful organisms which should be killed. However, this is a misconception as most bacteria are either beneficial or neutral with respect to our lives and the planet on which we all live. READ MORE

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!