biology

Grant Will Boost Student Research Experience

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Kalamazoo College’s efforts to get science majors experience in student research, one of the most important factors in providing them an exceptional start in their post-college careers, just got a big boost.

Student research
A $247,500 grant from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation will boost the availability of summer student research experiences for K biology, chemistry and physics majors.

The Sherman Fairchild Foundation will provide $247,500 to fund stipends of $4,000 apiece for students in biology, chemistry and physics to conduct research in summer. The three-year grant will also provide up to $1,500 apiece for students to attend scientific conferences to present their findings and to offset the cost of supplies, said Associate Professor of Physics Arthur Cole, who will serve as director of the project.

The student research beneficiaries, 15 each summer, will include both rising seniors working on their Senior Individualized Projects (SIPs) and younger students, allowing them to get early exposure to life in the lab before deciding whether to pursue science as a career, Cole said. He worked with Assistant Professor of Biology Santiago Salinas, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Dwight Williams and Anne Dueweke, director of grants, fellowships and research, to conceptualize and develop the grant proposal.

“It gives students an earlier chance to seek out research experiences,” Cole said. “A lot of times you think you want to go into the sciences and you don’t know what research is like until you get to try it.”

He said the grant also will make it possible for those who support themselves while attending the College to concentrate on student research, rather than having to seek summer jobs, and could open doors for members of groups who are underrepresented in the sciences.

Salinas said summer research as an undergraduate played a major role in his own decision to become a scientist and professor.

“It’s more than what’s in the textbook,” he said. “They start to see the bigger picture. And they get to try things. It’s how they learn. And it’s fun.”

For those who do decide to pursue scientific careers, Williams said, the opportunity to get early research experience can give them a “leg up” on getting further grants and research opportunities.

“It’s a great way for us to get more students involved in research, particularly with an emphasis on first- and second-year students, instead of waiting until they’re seniors working on their SIPs” he said.

Though most of the research that the grant funds will involve students working with professors on the College’s campus, it will also provide support for up to three K students a year to participate in research at other institutions, Cole said.

Biology Alumnae Present at Reflections and Connections

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Kalamazoo College’s Biology Department welcomed alumnae Melba Sales-Griffin ’12 and Emily Cornwell ’07 to campus today for the department’s annual Reflections and Connections event as a part of Homecoming 2017. The event, established in honor of Professor Emeritus Paul Sotherland, shares the career highlights and happenings of K alumni as they reflect on their K experiences and beyond.

Kalamazoo College alumna Emily Cornwell Presents at Reflections and Connections
Kalamazoo College alumna Emily Cornwell ’07 told students Friday, Oct. 20, at Reflections and Connections that a series of seemingly inconsequential events in their education might someday create their career paths.
Biology Professor Binney Girdler introduces Melba Sales-Griffin
Biology Professor Binney Girdler introduces Melba Sales-Griffin ’12 Friday, Oct. 20, at Reflections and Connections.

Sales-Griffin, a Chicago native, majored in biology and minored in art. She studied abroad in Ecuador for six months as a junior. She also held a leadership role on the Student Activities Committee and was a senior resident assistant. After college, she learned HTML, CSS and UX/UI at the Starter League in Chicago before becoming its office manager. She also worked at the University of Chicago Survey Lab administering phone surveys in English and Spanish. Now, Sales-Griffin is a service delivery coordinator at MATTER, a health care technology incubator that supports startups in the health care space.

Cornwell spent a year in Australia as a Fulbright Scholar researching the physiology of osmotolerance in a native mollusk and earning an honors degree from Deakin University. After returning from Australia, she started a dual Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine and Ph.D. program at Cornell University, where she focused on the infection dynamics of an invasive fish virus in the Great Lakes. She later completed additional training to become a certified aquatic veterinarian.

After serving as an emergency small animal and exotic species veterinarian in Virginia, she became a general practice small animal and aquatic veterinarian in Maryland. At work, she enjoys educating pet owners, solving issues in internal medicine and training veterinary technicians.

2 Faculty Members Promoted to Full Professor

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Kalamazoo College faculty members Binney Girdler and James Lewis have been promoted from associate professors to full professors.

Faculty Members Promoted Binney Girdler
Biology Professor Binney Girdler is one of two faculty members being promoted from associate professor to full professor.

Girdler, a biology professor, focuses her research on studying the structure and dynamics of terrestrial plant communities such as shoreline communities, grasslands and forests. She’s also interested in applied conservation biology, and develops relationships with area natural resource agencies and non-profit conservation groups to match her expertise and students with their research needs.

Girdler is a member of the Ecological Society of America and the Society for Conservation Biology. She has taught courses in environmental science, ecology and conservation, plant biology, population and community ecology, and senior seminars in environmental studies. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia, a master’s degree from Yale University and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Lewis, a history professor, has taught courses in U.S. history, Native American history, American environmental history, Revolutionary America, the American frontier and Western history, the history of U.S. foreign relations, post-World War II America, American political culture, the trial in American history and a senior seminar in history. Lewis is a professional member of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians and the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. He has written books including:

Faculty Members Promoted James Lewis
History Professor James Lewis is one of two faculty members being promoted from associate professor to full professor.
  • “The Louisiana Purchase: Jefferson’s Noble Bargain?” (2003);
  • “John Quincy Adams: Policymaker for the Union” (2001);
  • “The American Union and the Problem of Neighborhood: The United States and the Collapse of the Spanish Empire, 1783-1829” (1998); and
  • “The Burr Conspiracy: Uncovering the Story of an Early American Crisis” due out this fall.

Lewis earned a bachelor’s degree in government and foreign affairs from the College of William and Mary, a master’s degree in history from the American University, and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia.

“Both Dr. Girdler and Lewis are respected teachers and scholars in the best tradition of the liberal arts and sciences,” Kalamazoo College Provost Mickey McDonald said of the faculty members promoted. “This promotion recognizes their sustained excellence and the impact they have had and will continue to have on Kalamazoo College and our students.”

K Receives $255,000 Grant From The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation

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Kalamazoo College students and researchers soon will have more effective opportunities for chemical analysis thanks to a $255,000 grant from The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation. The grant allows K to replace an aging nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer, allowing students to analyze and identify chemical compounds and structures with state-of-the-art equipment.

Foundation president Macauley Whiting Jr. said of this charitable commitment, “The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation is deeply committed to science education as a means of vitalizing our entire region. Our history and our mission are linked to the type of innovative thinking that helps drive society forward. This grant invests in students who will lead scientific discovery in the years to come. These experiences will help prepare them for productive careers across a number of scientific fields. It would be our hope that they will choose to be part of Michigan’s future.”

NMR, like the more familiar magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedures used in medicine to diagnose injuries and diseases, applies a magnetic field and radio frequencies to a patient or a small chemical sample to give observable signals. These signals are like jigsaw pieces that assemble to provide a picture of what’s present. Kalamazoo College Chemistry Professor Greg Slough said nearly everything people eat, wear or consume at one point was studied with an NMR spectrometer, making the purchase central to teaching students how scientists analyze molecules. Such research helps K students gain valuable experience in their career paths and see how research applies to the real world.

“Pretty much every principle from quantum physics can now be applied in an NMR experiment and used to analyze structure,” Slough said. “When our current (spectrometer) was built around 1995, computer networking was just being implemented on a large scale. Twenty years later, scientists and students have come to demand more versatility.” With this new instrument, K students will study and collaborate with other students and research associates on campus and at their study abroad sites around the world.

Slough said essentially all biology and chemistry majors will have opportunities to use this new spectrometer. “K, in particular, emphasizes hands-on experiential learning, and this instrument will greatly enhance this in the chemical sciences,” he said.

The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation was established for religious, charitable, scientific, literary or educational purposes for the public benefaction of the inhabitants of the City of Midland and of the people of the State of Michigan. K’s Dow Science Center, completed in 1992, is named in recognition of a generous grant from The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation.

 

K Author Chronicles Dangers of Never Being Out of Season

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Kalamazoo College alumnus Robb Dunn
Robb Dunn

Biology professor (North Carolina State University), scientist and science writer Rob Dunn ’97 has a new book out. Never Out of Season: How Having the Food We Want When We Want It Threatens Our Food Supply and Our Future, was reviewed by Raj Patel in and article titled “Seeds of Destruction.” The review appears in the April 16, 2017, New York Times Book Review. Patel finds the book an engrossing review of human hubris relative to agricultural production. Medicine effectively treating high blood pressure may barely register in a patient’s consciousness. But he will know if it fails catastrophically, however brief that moment of recognition might be. Such unconscious dependence characterizes most of us relative to the people (and their efforts) who manage the diseases and pests that threaten modern agriculture and the world’s food supply. There have been catastrophic failures in the past, and Rob covers several, most notably, the 1845-49 Irish potato famine, a devastation (millions died) more artificial than natural, caused by failures both political and scientific. Among the latter, the fear of scientists to speak truth to power and a contempt for the botanical ingenuity of indigenous science. Concludes Patel: “There are biologists today who stare into the abyss of global crop failure, and stand ready to protest commercial and governmental venality. We can hope that Dunn’s book encourages them to be less humble toward the interests they serve, and offer more humility toward the knowledge of indigenous people, on whose shoulders they stand.”

Soccer Boys, Dinosaur Men

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Jeff Wilson '91 in Niger
Jeff Wilson ’91 in Niger

When the Wilson boys were kids, it was soccer over sauropods. Neither brother, Jeff or Greg, was particularly interested in dinosaurs.

Interests evolve over time. Today Jeff (Kalamazoo College class of 1991) and Greg are paleontologists and professors at the University of Michigan and the University of Washington, respectively. Both men will be speakers at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum (KVM) 2017 summer of dinosaurs. An article on the two (“Brothers in Paleontology”) appears in the Winter 2017 issue of museON, the magazine of KVM. At K Jeff majored in biology and studied abroad in Madrid, Spain. He was an outstanding Hornet soccer player–a four year letter winner, named All American (second team) one year and NSCAA-All Mideast Team two years.

In graduate school both Jeff and Paul studied and worked with renowned paleontologist Paul Sereno (University of Chicago). Sereno will speak about the intersection of arts, history and science in paleontology at the KVM on June 3, 2017.

Jeff and Greg specialize in different areas of the field. Jeff studies the paleobiology of sauropod dinosaurs, the largest land animals every to have existed on earth. His brother focuses on the small early mammals who coexisted with the dinosaurs.

In 1999, LuxEsto published a story about Jeff, who at the time was a paleontology doctoral student at the University of Chicago. Prior to that article Jeff had joined Sereno on five dinosaur expeditions, two in the Tenere Desert of central Niger in West Africa. (See photo of Jeff on one of these expeditions) Jeff was part of the team that discovered a new species of dinosaur called Sucomimus tenerensis, a 34-foot “crocodile mimic.” Jeff’s dinosaur expeditions have taken him throughout the world. And soccer has played a role in some of these trips. Jeff calls it a “universal language” very useful in building relationships when people lack fluency in one another’s first languages.

The Wilson boys sort of flipped the more predominant chronology–not so much interested in dinosaurs as kids, but big-time interested as adults. Why do so many kids love dinosaurs? LuxEsto posed that question to Jeff in 1999. “They’re big; they’re extinct’ and they attain heights we could never attain,” he said at that time. “They are the superheroes of animal life.” And, perhaps most important, “They are the gateway to a mysterious and strange world that is lost to us.”

Showerdough and Sourdough

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Rob Dunn '97
Rob Dunn ’97

Rob Dunn ’97 is at it again; it being another citizen-science project (or two). And it (or they) are the subject of a fun and wonderful piece by Nicola Twilley, “What’s Lurking in Your Showerhead,” that appears in the December 8 issue of the New Yorker magazine.

Rob is an evolutionary biologist and professor at North Carolina State University. Twilley is one of 500 participants in his lab’s Showerhead Microbiome Project. Those volunteers (in Europe and the United States) swab the gunk in their showerheads and send the samples Rob’s lab. Twilley found it a tad gross, but Rob wonders if it’s a good thing–those microorganisms in our showerheads. Turns out our bodies are full of other bodies–we depend on them. In fact, those other bodies’ cells (in or on us!) may outnumber our own, making me more other than myself. Wow! Whether or not what’s in our showerheads is good (or not so good) for us remains to be tested. First we have to see what’s in there in order to ask the right questions. Rob’s full of those; he’s a K grad. He’s also interested in the effect (for good or ill) on our “showerdough” of different water treatment processes.

Please forgive that “showerdough” malapropism; there’s a reason for it. Rob’s second current citizen-science project is all about the affect of microorganisms on sourdough and, ultimately on the taste of sourdough bread–across space and time. Some really interesting things may be going on there! Read Twilley’s article to find out. Citizen-science is nothing new to the Dunn lab. He’s done projects on belly button lint, human facial mites, insects in the kitchen, and household dust. Robs the author of three popular science books and was featured (“The Ant on Aldebaran”) in the Fall 2015 LuxEsto.

Undergraduates Present Research

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Undergrad Present ResearchFifteen Kalamazoo College students joined three of their teachers (professors Dwight Williams, Santiago Salinas and Ellen Robertson)  to present research at the 2016 West Michigan Regional Undergraduate Science Research Conference (WMRUGS) in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The annual conference provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to present their own research to a large and supportive group of professional scientists. K was well represented with sophomores, juniors, and seniors in attendance from both the Departments of Biology and Chemistry: Suma Alzouhayli ’17 (Chemistry and Biology), John Bailey ’17 (Chemistry), Christi Cho ’17 (Chemistry), Quinton Colwell ’17 (Chemistry), Rachel Fadler ’17 (Chemistry), Sarah Glass ’17 (Chemistry), Sharat S. Kamath ’19, Christina Keramidas ’18 (Chemistry and Biology), Cydney Martell ’19 (Chemistry), Garret Miller ’16 (Chemistry), Susmitha Narisetty ’19 (Biology), Darren Peel ’17 (Biology), Collin Steen ’17 (Chemistry), Myles Truss ’17 (Chemistry), Raoul Wadhwa ’17 (Chemistry and Computer Science). In addition to presenting their research, students heard a keynote address and research talks by undergraduate and graduate students from regional colleges and universities. This free event also provided undergraduate researchers the opportunity to interact face-to-face with graduate school recruiters and to learn more about future career opportunities.

There were 169 undergraduate posters presented at WMRUGS from students representing 17 different college and universities. Ten students from the Kalamazoo College Department of Chemistry, presented results of their research conducted under the mentorship of Kalamazoo College faculty that included Laura Furge, Regina Stevens-Truss, and Dwight Williams. Other students presented the results of their summer research projects conducted in laboratories at Indiana University and the University of Oregon. Students from the Department of Biology presented their findings from research conducted this past summer in laboratories at South Dakota State University and Michigan State University.

Beloved Biology Professor Emeritus Dies

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Kalamazoo College Professor Emeritus of Biology David EvansDavid Evans, professor emeritus of biology, died on September 20, 2016. He was 77 years old, four days shy of his 78th birthday, and doing one of the things he loved most—taking a walk on a trail. David’s 39-year career at Kalamazoo College began in 1965 and concluded with his retirement in 2004. “Biology is magnificent,” he once said, “and humbling, and goofy. In some sense, biology is best approached with a good eye for silliness, for it is stuffed with paradoxes, irony, and the ridiculous. This aspect of the subject is often the most engaging for non-majors, but it never fails to lead to more sophisticated material. I often used this movement from the ridiculous to the sublime as a teaching strategy in my courses.”

David’s area of specialty was insect behavior, and two important (and related) themes of his teaching and research were seasonality and adaptation. He earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Carleton College and his master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Wisconsin. His research was published in numerous journals, and he received many academic grants during his career.

His work took him to Africa many times. In 1982 he was a Fulbright professor of Biological Sciences at Njala University College at the University of Sierra Leone. In the early 1990s he visited the continent to study locust migrations on behalf of the United States Agency for International Development. His work and study in Africa became the basis for one of his K courses, “Ecology of Africa.” In 1995 he received the Frances Diebold Award for Contributions to the College Community, and in 1998 the faculty awarded him its highest teaching honor, the Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching. Those awards were related, in part, to the K marine ecology courses he co-taught with the late David Winch (professor emeritus of physics) on site at San Salvador Island and Jewfish Cay in the Caribbean. “On campus,” he said, “the class handled gray rubbery specimens preserved in jars. In San Salvador the students experienced the organisms alive and in color, and observed how they behaved in their habitat. It was like having one’s eyesight restored.”

Near and after his retirement he served during the summers as a naturalist at Fort Abercrombie State Park on Kodiak Island, Alaska. He loved that assignment, in part because of the “really cool truck” he drove, but mostly because of the liberal arts breadth of the work. In addition to naturalist, he worked as the island’s historian (delving into the area’s World War II days, in particular), and he wrote a weekly column for the island’s newspaper. Shortly after his final courses in a K classroom (spring term 2004) David served as “ship’s biology teacher” in a Semester-at-Sea program that circumnavigated the globe, with stops that included Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Myanmar, Kenya, South Africa, Brazil and Cuba. And long into his retirement he often contacted the College with alerts regarding the achievements of his former students, both majors and non-majors.

David always loved the liberal arts, a passion closely related to his academic and research interest in adaptation. He believed that the liberal arts was the best educational model to develop a broader range of reference and a better sense of humor, traits he considered essential for adaptation in careers and life in general.

He died taking a walk, an activity he loved (particularly along an ocean shore) and that he wrote about in his August 29, 2001, column in the Kodiak Daily Mirror, his final column for that summer’s season.

“For me, the last tide pool walks mean that the park season is winding down….[T]idepooling is one of the most unpredictable park activities in which I’m involved. We seem to have a particularly good time when children are along…

“There’s an Alutiq saying that expresses tidal rhythms in terms of using plants and animals as food: When the tide goes out, the table is set; When the tide comes in, the dishes are washed. The saying gets to the same rhythmic renewal that makes me appreciate this kind of field activity so much. I know I can go down to an area where I’ve been dozens of times, and I can be guaranteed of seeing something new and wondrous.”