Notable Accomplishments

Summer 2010

• Dr. Adam Kay, with Dr. Chester Wilson, Steve Trost, and St. Thomas students Aaron Hayes, Josh Prebeck, and Megan Sheridan got the St. Thomas community garden running and maintained over the summer.  Not only did this facility provide more than 200 pounds of food for local food shelves, it also provided a rich research site.
• Forty-five students engaged in research in labs in our department this summer, with a few other students working in research labs at the University of Minnesota. 

 

Academic Year 2009-10

• Three St. Thomas students won national awards.  Nick Huynh (2010) won a Fulbright grant to study HIV in Sweeden for 10 months.  Albert Kertho won an undergraduate research grant from the American Society of Plant Biologists.  Tom Langer won a research fellowship from the EPA.
• Faculty from our department published 20 articles in peer reviewed journals or book chapters.  Five of these were with student authors.
• Seven faculty grants were added this year from the NSF, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and the “LI-COR Genomics Education” Analysis System.
• Eight student researchers presented at national and regional scientific meetings.  Faculty presented at 11 different meetings.

 

Summer 2009

• Once again, the summer in the BIology department is a lively place, with student researchers working in 8 different labs.

Academic Year 2008-09

• Dr. Adam Kay, Dr. Dalma Martinovic, and Dr. Kyle Zimmer were all successful in obtaining grants to enhance their research.
• Eight students within the department were awarded with UST Young Scholar's grants.
• Faculty/student collaborations produced 8 articles in peer-reviewed journals.
• Three UST students presented papers at undergraduate research meetings and an additional 12 students presented at Inquiry at UST.
• A total of 14 presentations were made by faculty and faculty/student collaborators at international, national, and regional conferences.
• Biology department faculty published 14 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 2 book chapters.

Summer 2008

• This summer, 40 research students are working in 9 different labs and being mentored by both faculty and staff.

Academic Year 2007-08

• Two students, Maria Hindt and Katherine Theisen, received prestigious Golwater Scholarships.
• Dr. Amy Verhoeven, Doreen Schroeder, and Dr. Susan Chaplin completed their first year of a three-year NSF grant to improve technology in teaching labs by implementing digital microscopes and gas exchange systems.  These systems will be used in Diversity and Adaptation (BIOL 201) and Plant Biology (BIOL 315).
• Dr. Simon Emms, Dr. Amy Verhoeven, and Dr. Susan Mazer at the University of California Santa Barbara began a five-year, NSF funded project to study the joint evolution of mating systems, life-history strategies, and drought physiology in the Californian genus Clarkia.  You can see the fruits of their labors in the greenhouse.
• Biology department faculty and faculty/student collaborations produced four articles in peer-reviewed journals and one book chapter.
  

 

During the 1940s and 1950s, McClintock discovered transposition and used it to show how genes are responsible for turning physical characteristics on or off. His 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, established evolution by common descent as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. Katherine, a Goldwater Scholarship winner, worked in Dr. Adam Kay's lab on how the nutrient phosphorus affects life history characteristics of freshwater snails. Beth is now in graduate school in the Biosciences Department at the University of Iowa.  She conducted research in Dr. Jayna Ditty's lab since her first year at UST. His experiments confirmed the germ theory of disease, and he created the first vaccine for rabies. During his lifetime van Leeuwenhoek ground over 500 optical lenses. He also created over 400 different types of microscopes, only nine of which still exist today. Fossey"s book, Gorillas in the Mist, was praised by Nikolaas Tinbergen who was a Dutch ethologist and ornithologist who won the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Her book remains the best selling book about gorillas of all time.

Albert is one of only 15 undergraduate researchers to get an award from the Society of Plant Biologists.
 

Nick will spend 10 months studying HIV in Sweden. Taylor is a 2010 graduate and will be doing research at the Smithsonian Tropical Research center in Panama summer of 2010.

Kyle Zimmer's research students