The biology department has gained some worldwide representation.
Over the summer, many student and faculty researchers attended conferences around the world to present their research.
Portland, Oregon
From May 6-10, four students presented their research at the 105th annual meeting of the American Association of Immunologists.
- Nayeon Son – “Identification of a Novel Protein Interaction that Elucidates the Mechanism of Idiopathic Recurrent Miscarriages in Women with NLRP2 and NLRP7 Mutations.”
- Riley Nadler – “Sodium Pyruvate Inhalation of COVID-19 Long Hauler Symptoms-An Effective and Inexpensive Treatment.”
- Catherine Rippe – “Examining the Immune Regulatory Function of NLRP12 Through Novel Protein Interactions.”
- Devyn Worthley – “Corticosteroid Treatment Results in Enhanced Susceptibility to Influenza-Associated Aspergillosis.”
Dr. Christopher Lupfer co-authored all of the students’ presentations.
San Diego, California
The 61st Annual Meeting of the Society of Toxicology took place from March 27-31.
Master’s student Sophia Antonopoulos attended this meeting to present her paper titled “Prenatal and Postnatal Dietary Exposure to Tin Dioxide and Copper Oxide Nanoparticles Did Not Lead to Morphological Abnormalities or Changes in Allograft Inflammatory Factor-1 Expression in Pubescent Rat Kidney.”
Her faculty adviser and co-author of the paper was Dr. Paul Durham.
Antonopoulos’s paper was officially accepted and has been published.
Montreal, Canada
Dr. Alexander Wait attended the Ecological Society of America and Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution conference from Aug. 15-19.
He presented his research titled “Change in a woodland/degraded woodland system with oaks as the keystone species with over 60 years of fire management: Is it predictable and unsurprising?”
Students Akeem Ajao and Sanjeev Sharma were co-authors of Wait’s project.
San Jose, Costa Rica
The Animal Behavior Society held its annual meeting July 20-23. Five students attended, and four of them presented.
- Annaliese Novinger – “Instrumental learning of motor routines in pollen foraging bees is nothing to sneeze at.”
- Maggie Mayberry – “Mutual exploitation? How learning affects pollination and foraging success.”
- Jenny Burrow – “Picky eaters: generalist bees sample pollen by ingestion before collection.”
- Abilene Mosher – “Extra, extra, buzz all about it: Mutualistic flower cues elicit a pollen foraging behavior.”
- Haley Muse – Attended, but no presentation.
All students are advised by Dr. Avery Russell.
San Juan, Puerto Rico
For the first time, the American Ornithological Society and BirdsCarribean hosted a joint conference from June 27 to July 2.
Two students presented their research, with both papers co-authored by Dr. Jay McEntee.
- Shelby Palmer – “Determining quantity of song recording necessary for accurate acoustic measurements in Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) and Carolina Chickadees (Poecile carolinensis).”
- Zach Vickers – “Does local abundance predict the size of Bewick’s Wrens’ song repertoires?”