News and Events
Student News
Student Research Award
Our Biology BA/MA graduate student, and Environmental Science undergraduate Lianne Samalot has received a 2012 Geller Student Research Award. The Albert, Norma and Howard ’77 Geller Endowed Research Awards are intended to support student initiated research projects that advance both our understanding of opportunities for greater sustainability in the human use of resources and the environment, and practical improvements that can be implemented. Congratulations Lianne!
Fall Fest - November 2, 2011
At Fall Fest '11, which celebrates creativity and research of undergraduate students, biology students presented their summer research findings to a large crowd of students, faculty, and administrators. Below from upper left: Professor Robertson with Jennifer Gaines'12, visiting Professor Craig Magie with his wife, Professor Neva Meyer, and a group of biology folks, an enthusiastic Daniel Rabinowicz '12 in front of his poster ("How Soil Moisture Affects the Physical and Chemical Properties of Soil”) - and in the bottom right - Professor Larochelle talking with Mark Benoit '12 (“Secondary Analysis of Genetic Interactions with Tumor Suppressors"). Other students from Biology Department who displayed their work were: Marifel Ullola'12 , Katherine Friedman'12, Lina Sanchez'13, Matthew Warndorf'12, and Lauren Beaudin'12.
Mini Spree Day '11
Biology celebrated its Mini Spree Day on April 28th. The students in Animal Behavior (BIOL 242) presented the work they did over the last semester. The food was excellent as well as science experience.
Welcome back Sohini!
Congratulations to Sohini Ghoshroy who finished her dissertation work this past January (2011). We are pleased to announce that Sohini has re-joined
the Robertson lab
as a post-doctoral researcher.
Our recent graduate Anna Mazzarella
Anna Mazzarella (’09), MA 2010, has just accepted a Ph.D. Fellowship at the 
Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES) at the University of Olso, Norway. The goal of the research in which she will participate is Tracking signatures of adaptive diversification during postglacial colonization in threespine stickleback. The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway. The overall aims of the project are to detect genomic regions and phenotypic traits under selection when sticklebacks invade fresh waters. Anna will work with supervisors at the CEES (L.A. Vøllestad, T.F. Hansen, K.S. Jakobsen, K. Østbye) and international collaborators (F. Volckaert, A. Nolte). This is a wonderful opportunity and we are really excited for Anna.
Our biology majors are real heroes!
Three of our students - Mark Benoit, Jason Smith and Alexander Andersen were involved in a rescue operation that actually saved a person's life. We want to congratulate them. To read the whole story click here.
Our Department welcomes Daniella Swenton
Daniella Swenton has joined the Foster/Baker Laboratory in a post-doctoral position in January 2010. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Vermont and conducted her Ph.D. research at the University of New Mexico on the ecological and behavioral maintenance of speciation in mosquitofish. She is teaching Conservation Biology at Clark this spring and we are happy to welcome her to the department.
Ms. Swenton has just now (3/14/10) accepted a position as Visiting Assistant Professor at Clark University. She will step in for Justin Thackeray who will be on sabbatical leave, and will thus teach a portion of Biology 102, Genetics (Biology 118) and a new course in Population Genetics (Biology 225/325).
Our PhD graduate Camilo Khatchikian finds his next destination
Camilo who has completed his doctoral work in January 2010, has accepted a postdoc at Penn, where he will work with Dustin Brisson on various aspects of Lyme disease. Camilo arrived at Clark from Argentina in 2002, and he has been working in Todd Livdahl's lab since. We are all happy for Camilo's success!!
Our MA graduate, Rachel Chock finds opportunity in Chile
Rachel Chock (’07), MA ’08, has accepted a competitive NSF-funded research position in Chile that will begin in June 2010. She will be conducting research with Dr. Loren Hayes from University of Louisiana, Monroe and Dr. Luis Ebensperger from Universidad de Catolica in Santiago, Chile. The researches focuses on social behavior in degus (Octodon degus), and her personal research focus will be on allonursing by this mammal in the lab and the field. This is an exceptionally exciting opportunity.
Our Ph.D. graduate, Lingyan Wang finds her new path in New York.
Lingyan Wang graduated in May 2009, and began working as a post-doctoral fellow in October, in the laboratory of Dr. Sandra Masur, Professor of Ophthalmology, at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine of New York University. She is responsible for the development of three-dimensional culture systems for use as corneal transplants. Good Luck Lingyan!
Our Ph.D. graduate, Kristina Gonzalez starts a new career at UMMC.
Kristina Gonzalez graduated in August 2009, and began working as a post-doc on November 2nd, in the laboratory of Dr. William Kobertz at UMMC. She will be synthesizing drugs (toxins) and using electrophysiology techniques to study their actions on ion channels in cardiac tissue. Good Luck Kristina!
Research News
Summer 2010
This summer, several Biology faculty and graduate students participated in an on-campus workshop to learn effective ways to communicate their research interests and findings to members of the media and the general public (Read more).
A new paper published in BMC Evolutionary Biology
Sohini Ghoshroy, Manfred Binder, Aurelien Tartar and Deb Robertson have a new paper published in BMC Evolutionary Biology titled “Molecular evolution of glutamine synthetase II: Phylogenetic evidence of a non-endosymbiotic gene transfer event early in plant evolution" . In this paper, they examined the evolutionary relationship of glutamine synthetase from eubacterial and eukaryotic lineages and present robust phylogenetic evidence that the glutamine synthetase gene was transferred from gamma-Proteobacteria (Eubacteria) to the green algae early in plant evolution. Although horizontal gene transfer events (the exchange of genes between non-related organisms) are common in prokaryotes (e.g., bacteria) they were thought be a rare in eukaryotes. Genome sequencing and phylogenetic analyses, such as the current paper, have begun to reshape our understanding of the frequency of horizontal gene transfers in eukaryotes, which appear more common than previously thought.
Manfred Binder et al.- new article on mushroom evolution published in Mycologia.
Faculty News
Welcome Dr. Liu!
Xiao-Yong Liu has just joined Professor Hibbet's lab as a Visiting Scholar. Dr. Liu is a researcher at the Systematic Mycology and Lichenology Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He received a grant from CAS to work in Dr. Hibbet's lab for one year on fungal phylogenetics.
We welcome a new Professor
We are very excited to announce the arrival of a new faculty member to the Biology Department at Clark. Our new Assistant Professor is Philip J. Bergmann from the University of Arizona. His appointment does not begin until January 2011, but we are getting ready to welcome him. Philip Bergmann's primary research interests are focused on the evolution of segmentation and body shape in vertebrates (read more).
New Grants
• Deb Robertson received a new NSF grant.
Deb Robertson received a three year award this April (2011) from the Division of Integrated Organismal Systems at the National Science Foundation. The work will examine the role of post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in marine diatoms.
• David Hibbett's lab received two new NSF grants this year
Project title: MSB/PEET: polyPEET- enhancing taxonomic expertise in the Polyporales. National Science Fundation Systematics and Population Biology (DSH, PI).Funding period Jan.1,2010-Dec.31,2014.DEB- 0933081. $750,000
Project title: Collaborative Research: Fungal Life History Strategies and Evolution: Insights from Isotopic Measurements and Phylogenetic Analysis. National Science Foundation Integrative Organismal Systems (DSH, PI). Funding period Apr. 15, 2009-Sept. 30, 2011. IOS-0843278. $59,999
Professor Wiatrowski's paper was just noted as an “Editor’s choice” in Science magazine
Reduction of Hg(II) to Hg(0) by Magnetite Heather A. Wiatrowski, Soumya Das, Ravi Kukkadapu, Eugene S. Ilton, Tamar Barkay and Nathan Yee Environmental Science and Technology 2009, 43 (14), pp 5307–5313 This article was featured in Science Magazine’s July 3rd “Editor’s Choice” section under Geochemistry.
David Hibbett elected Vice President of Mycological Society of America
Prof. David Hibbett has been elected Vice President of the Mycological Society of America, a scientific society dedicated to advancing the science of mycology — the study of fungi of all kinds including mushrooms, molds, truffles, yeasts, lichens, plant pathogens and medically important fungi. Read more about MSA
First Year Seminar – BIOL108, Annotation of a Microbial Genome.
Professor Heather Wiatrowski was selected by the Education Department of the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) to take part on behalf of Clark in the Undergraduate Research Program in Microbial Genome Annotation. The program enables undergraduate life sciences students at Clark to analyze bacteria genomes as a new way of teaching bioscience curriculum standards.