Faculty Highlights

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.

John Peters, assistant professor of biology, published "Getting students excited about introductory biology" in ASBMB Today.

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.

Carrie Wu, professor of biology, published “Wavyleaf basketgrass (Oplismenus undulatifolius) invasion is associated with changes in soil microbial communities” in mSphere.

Amy Treonis, associate professor of biology, published “Briny Biology: Nematodes From the Hypersaline Springs of the Central Namib Desert” in Ecology & Evolution. 

Linda Boland, professor of biology, published “Colleges face a choice: Try to shape AI’s impact on learning, or be redefined by it” in The Conversation.

Kelly Lambert, professor of behavioral neuroscience and MacEldin Trawick Professor in Psychology, Jonathan Richardson, associate professor of biology, Kitty Hartvigsen, Trawick Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology, Olivia Harding, psychology manager of labs, and Jacy Jacob, adjunct lecturer of psychology and former Trawick Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology, along with Ava Wagner, '24, Isabel DiLandro, '25, Andres Mauco, '26, Paean Luby, '25, and Aditya Narayanan, '25, published “Comparative neurobiology of vigilance and stress adaptation systems in wild and laboratory rodents (Rattus norvegicus)” in Frontiers in Ethology.

Kristine Grayson was promoted to professor of biology. She is a field ecologist whose areas of expertise include population ecology, thermal physiology, the spread of invasive forest insects, and the conservation of amphibians and reptiles.

Melinda Yang was promoted to associate professor of biology. Her research focuses on using and developing computational population genetic tools to study the evolutionary history and genetic variation of species, especially humans, by analyzing both ancient and present-day genomes. Her work combines assessing the robustness of these tools with uncovering demographic relationships, with a particular emphasis on ancient human populations.

Angie Hilliker, associate professor of biology, along with Audrey J. Panko, '15, Aidan Winters, '17, and Nicholas R. Rothbard, '15, published "A genetic interaction between DED1 and HAT1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae reveals a role for Hat1p in cytoplasmic RNA granule accumulation" in G3: Genes, Genomes, and Genetics.

Omar Quintero-Carmona, associate professor of biology, and Stacey Criswell, director of microscopy and imaging, along with Joanna A. Mas, '26, Chase E. Cristella, '26, Vu Hao M. N. Phan, '26, Lillian S. Wendt, '26, Charlotte A. Rose, '26, Abigail Ali, '25, David F. Carpio, '24, Christine Cole, '24, Paige Embley, '25, Jack E. Hoskins-Harris, '26, Delia Johnson, '25, Noelle Ledoux, '26, Hannah W. Lwin, '25, and Sarah Salah, '24, published "Cells stably expressing shRNA against MYO10 display altered cell motility" in MicroPublication Biology.