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Biology Professor Receives International Advising Award  

Dr. Teresa Mutahi, Senior Lecturer & Undergraduate Coordinator for the UF Biology Major, has been awarded a NACADA Certificate of Merit of the Outstanding New Advisor Award – Primary Advising Role. NACADA is the international association that promotes quality academic advising in higher education.  The NACADA Global Awards Program for Academic Advising honors individuals and institutions […]

Biology Graduate Student Wins Genetics Institute Showcase

Biology graduate student Keon Wimberly (Ph.D. student in Keith Choe’s Lab) is the winner of the 2021 UF Genetics Institute Graduate Student Showcase!   The students involved in this virtual conference were from UFGI-affiliated labs.  They presented 3-minute talks on their research using one slide.  Keon was recognized for his talk, “Identification of a novel kinase in cell stress.” […]

ESA Honors Four Biology Alums 

ESA Honors Four Biology Alums  The Ecological Society of America (ESA) has honored four Biology Department graduates with special awards.  Elected as 2021 Fellows of the ESA are Becky Ostertag (Putz Lab Ph.D. 1998; now Professor of Biology at University of Hawaii, Hilo) and Amy Zanne (Chapman Lab, Ph.D. 2003; now Associate Professor of Biological […]

Top 50 Article of 2020 from the Cummings Lab

A publication from Biology Professor Derek Cummings’ Lab is being recognized as one of the most frequently read articles from Nature Communications in 2020 (Life and Biological Sciences). The article “A systematic review of antibody mediated immunity to coronaviruses: kinetics, correlates of protection, and association with severity” is also one of the top 50 SARS-CoV-2 publications […]

Biology Undergrads Author Paper

Three Biology undergraduate students from Malcolm Maden’s Lab, Nicole Serrano (BS 2017), Monica Bermudez (BS 2019) and Aaron Sandoval (BS 2019) have co-authored a study published in the Journal of Anatomy (2020; 00:1–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.13373) entitled “A profusion of neural stem cells in the brain of the spiny mouse, Acomys cahirinus.” 

Science Highlights Biology Grad Student’s Research

Research by Biology graduate student Ian Ausprey (Scott Robinson’s Lab) is highlighted in the journal Science!   The News article is entitled “Eye size predicts where birds breed and feed.” The original study is in a forthcoming issue of Ecology,  “Adaptations to light predict the foraging niche and disassembly of avian communities in tropical countrysides.”

Biology graduate student publishes in Ecology

Biology graduate student Alexandra Gulick, with co-authors from the National Park Service and the UF Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research, recently published a paper in Ecology. Results of the study show that grazing by recovering green turtle populations stimulates seagrass productivity, and that grazing intensity has a relevant role in regulating the productivity […]

New Book on Alligators by Kent Vliet

Dr. Kent Vliet, Coordinator of Introductory Laboratories for the Department of Biology, has published a new book with Johns Hopkins University Press (2020):   Alligators: The Illustrated Guide to Their Biology, Behavior, and Conservation.  Wonderfully illustrated with photographs by wildlife photographer Wayne Lynch, this authoritative book is fascinating reading for anyone interested in the ecology, behavior […]

NSF “Understanding the Rules of Life” Grant to Biology Professor

Biology Professor Matthew Leibold has been awarded a 5-year grant from the National Science Foundation “Understanding the Rules of Life: Microbiome Theory and Mechanisms” initiative.  The study, entitled “Searching for General Rules Governing Microbiome Dynamics Using Anaerobic Digesters as Model Systems,” is a collaborative effort with colleagues from the University of Oklahoma, UC-Davis and the […]

Biology Post-doc publishes in Nature

Biology post-doctoral associate Gonzalo Quiroga Artigas and other members of the Schnitzler Lab have a new paper in Nature Scientific Reports.  The study describes a new method (electroporation) for delivering short hairpin RNAs (shRNA) into fertilized eggs of a hydrozoan cnidarian (polyp).   This experimental technique allows the researcher to target specific genes for knockdown (i.e. […]

Biology Grad Student Receives MBE Award

Ayush Saxena, recent Ph.D. from the Baer Lab,  has been awarded the “Best student paper of 2019” by the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.  The paper entitled “Evolution of the mutational process under relaxed selection in Caenorhabditis elegans” appeared in Molecular Biology and Evolution in 2018.  For further information see https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/36/2/239/5184273​

Congratulations to this year’s student recipients of the MFT, Thesis, and Biology scholarships!

Biology Department

Spring 2020 MFT Award winners: 1st place: Matei Caeleap 2nd runner up: David Adelhelm 3rd runner ups: Kayli Sieber & Dawson Houghtaling Winners by Topic category: Cell Biology: Matei Caeleap Molecular Biology & Genetics: Matei Caeleap & Sarah Nestler Organismal Biology: David Adelhelm Population Biology, Evolution, and Ecology: Cullen Smith, Morgan LaMarc, & Rachel Lotze […]

BIOLOGY PROFESSOR WINS HYNES AWARD

Biology assistant professor Amanda Subalusky won the 2020 Hynes Award for New Investigators from the Society for Freshwater Science.  The Hynes Award recognizes the freshwater scientist who was senior author of an outstanding primary publication that appeared in print in the last three years.  The award-winning publication was her 2017 Proceedings of the National Academy […]

Biology Professor Coauthors Two Papers in Science on Forest Dynamics

Associate Professor Jeremy Lichstein coauthored two recent papers on forest dynamics in the journal Science. The first paper, titled “Demographic trade-offs predict tropical forest dynamics,” used data from a tropical forest in Panama and a computer simulation model to show that two ecological tradeoffs – one between growth and survivorship, and another between early reproduction […]