Department of Biology

Melinda A. Yang, associate professor of biology, received a National Science Foundation CAREER award of more than $990,000 to support her research on genetic adaptations in modern humans. Over the next five years, Yang, an ancient DNA expert, will build an easy-to-use tool that combines present-day and ancient DNA data to help researchers identify the genetic changes that have helped humans adapt and survive over time. Yang will also develop a Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) using ancient DNA datasets for students taking her Human Evolutionary Genomics course at UR.

Priscilla Erickson, assistant professor of biology, along with co-first authors Mia Hollekim, '26, and Lucy Smith, '26, published “Invasive African fig flies (Zaprionus indianus) have reduced cold acclimation ability compared to cosmopolitan drosophilid species” in microPublication Biology.

Melinda A. Yang, assistant professor of biology, Stephanie A. Spera, associate professor of geography, environment, & sustainability, and Beth Zizzamia, spatial analysis lab GIS operations manager, along with students Flora Yi, '27, and Elliot Delroba, '24, published "The AADR Visualizer: an ArcGIS online visualizer for ancient human DNA from the Allen Ancient DNA Resource" in the Bioinformatic Advances. The AADR Visualizer is the associated tool. The groundbreaking project lets users explore ancient human DNA through an interactive global map.

Colleen Carpenter-Swanson, assistant professor of biology, published “Employing zebrafish to understand genetic drivers of epilepsy-related comorbid behaviors” in Frontiers in Pharmacology along with Kharma Hall, '24, and Olivia Beatty, '24.