The department congratulates Lynda Delph, Roger Hangarter, Roger Innes, Rudolf Raff, and Curt Lively, all of whom were honored with prestigious awards this year. Delph, Hangarter, Innes, and Raff were elected as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Innes was also named a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and Lively was promoted to distinguished professor.
Two biologists have received notable grants to fund their work. Patricia Foster heads a team of researchers who will receive up to $6.25 million from the U.S. Department of Defense as part of an initiative to study the constraints on mutation in microorganisms. Craig Pikaard is one of 15 scientists who will benefit from a new joint initiative sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to support fundamental plant science research.
The Ecology and Evolutionary Biology graduate program (EEB) was ranked near the top of its field according to the latest report from the National Research Council (NRC). The NRC used two methods to evaluate the overall quality of graduate programs, both of which placed our EEB graduate program among the top 6 graduate programs out of the nearly 100 programs that were ranked, and number 1 among public universities.
Researchers from the IU Bloomington Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics (CGB) have been closely involved with the sequencing of two genomes, that of a tiny crustacean, as well as the cacao tree responsible for the beans that are processed into chocolate. Daphnia pulex is the first crustacean to have its genome sequenced. Although it is the size of a grain of rice, this freshwater organism has the most genes, about 31,000, of any animal studied to date, including humans, who have only 23,000 genes. Scientists from the Daphnia Genomics Consortium (DGC) reported their findings in the February 4 issue of Science.
Three Department of Biology students received honors recently. Graduate student and former Holland Fellow Adrian Land was recognized by the City of Bloomington, undergraduate Kimberly Long was named a Goldwater Scholar, and Elizabeth Bercovitz, also an undergraduate, earned an Elvis J. Stahr Distinguished Senior Award.
IU alumni Howard and Joel Sagalowsky visited the Department of Biology recently. Both were science majors, spending countless hours in Jordan Hall during their undergraduate days, so they welcomed the chance to see the department’s recently renovated laboratories and to tour Simon Hall. Howard worked with biology to establish the Sagalowsky Family Professorship through an estate gift.
Alumni, do you have a story you would like to share with us or would you like to submit information for the class notes section of the Biology Alumni Newsletter? If so, e-mail us your stories. We’d love to hear from you!
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