Lewis and Clark Grant for Ware
Ian Ware (Bailey Lab) has been awarded a $5000 grant from the Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research. Congratulations, Ian!
by armsworth
Ian Ware (Bailey Lab) has been awarded a $5000 grant from the Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research. Congratulations, Ian!
by armsworth
Rachel Fovargue (Armsworth Lab) has received a 2016-2017 Yates Dissertation Fellowship! The fellowships provide recognition and financial support to outstanding doctoral students in all fields of study at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville during the dissertation process. Congratulations, Rachel!
by armsworth
Ian Ware (Bailey Lab) has received the Center for Tree Science Graduate Research Fellowship with the Morton Arboretum. The fellowship provides $9500 for students to attend the US Forest Service workshop: Gene Conservation of Tree Species, field research funding, and sequencing funding.
by armsworth
Justin Hendy (Small Lab) received an award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching during the 2016 Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week at UT. He received the award for his work as the BioLit 150 head teaching assistant. To quote the program from the award ceremony:
“Justin has taught Biology 150 discussion sections and has served as the head teaching assistant for the last three semesters. His leadership extends to not only preparing the GTAs each week, but also to making revisions and changes to the curriculum as needed. He is a caring and thoughtful teacher and an excellent organizer / leader.”
Congratulations, Justin!
by armsworth
Chloe Lash (Kwit Lab) has been awarded a fellowship to conduct research on ant seed dispersal this summer at Mountain Lake Biological Station (MLBS) through the University of Virginia’s Horton H. Hobbs, Jr. Endowment Fund. The fellowship provides up to $3,500 towards room, board, and user fees at the station. There, Chloe will also be serving as a mentor for MLBS’s long-running NSF-supported Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, where she will advise an undergraduate awardee’s work on ant seed dispersal.
by armsworth
Jayne Lampley (Schilling Lab) is one of just 26 graduate students across UT who have received a 2016 Summer Graduate Research Assistantship from The Office of Research and Engagement. The GRAs are funded by the Scholarly and Research Incentive Funds. Selected faculty projects receive $3,600 in support of student stipends for work completed during the summer.
Her project is called “Analysis of an Evolutionary Radiation in Trillium.”
Congratulations!
by armsworth
Michael Van Nuland (Schweitzer Lab) has been awarded a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation.
The goal of his project is to understand the mechanistic basis of plant genetic-by-soil microbial phylogenetic-by-abiotic environment interactions that will determine plant and soil function across important gradients of global change (e.g., temperature, H2O, and soil nitrogen [N]). The results will provide managers fundamental insights into how plants, as mediated by the diversity of the soil community, respond to abiotic stress and new tools to mitigate environmental change by identifying genotypes with high plant productivity, accelerated phenology, consistent soil conditioning, and positive feedbacks in different environments. Identification of soil microorganisms that influence plant traits, such as signaling the timing of bud break and initiation of the growing season, will be applicable to a wide range of global change issues.
Congratulations, Michael!
by armsworth
The Ecological Society of America announced the six 2016 recipients of its annual Graduate Student Policy Award, and the list includes our own Jessica Welch (McCracken and Simberloff Labs)! The award winners will travel to Washington, DC, to participate in policy training sessions and meetings with their US Representative and Senators. On Capitol Hill, they will team with other scientists to discuss with lawmakers the importance of federal funding for the biological sciences, particularly the National Science Foundation.
To view the full press release, please click here.
by armsworth
Brian Looney (Matheny Lab) has one of his Russula mushroom photos from Thailand on the cover of the January 2016 issue of Molecular Ecology. This accompanies his article, “Into and out of the tropics: global diversification patterns in a hyperdiverse clade of ectomycorrhizal fungi” (pages 630–647).
Congratulations!
by armsworth
Sam Borstein (O’Meara Lab) is a coauthor on a new article in Science called “A pharyngeal jaw evolutionary innovation facilitated extinction in Lake Victoria cichlids.”
This paper looks at how the pharyngeal jaw apparatus in cichlids, widely considered an evolutionary innovation allowing them to feed on a variety of prey items, doomed piscivorous cichlids when the Nile perch invaded Lake Victoria in the 1950’s. The results suggests that competition in conjunction with predation by the introduced Nile perch drove hundreds of endemic cichlid species to extinction.
Congratulations, Sam!