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"STEM"

Zebrafish and 鈥淒river鈥� Genes: Biologists Nab Grants

Prof. Kara Cerveny [bio] won an $80K grant to study neurogenesis in zebrafish.

Three 猫咪社区 biology professors have won significant grants this spring, continuing a remarkable string of success for the .

Prof. won an $80,000 grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust to investigate neurogenesis—the process by which neurons are generated—in zebrafish. This is part of a collaborative grant with two other principal investigators at Whitworth University and Lewis & Clark College; the total amount awarded to all three institutions is $240,000. The Collaborative Research Alliance Pilot Initiative will establish a virtual "Center for Excellence" in the Pacific Northwest. The overall goal of this project is to study the mechanisms underlying cell specification behavior during neurogenesis in developing embryos.

Prof. won a $57,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to organize the BRAIN STEM workshop which brought together professors and students from colleges around the nation to discuss the role of undergraduate research and education toward the national .

Study Dashes Bucket of Cold Water on Psychologists

猫咪社区 psych major Melissa Lewis 鈥�13 was one of the authors of a groundbreaking study on reproducibility published in the journal Science.

A by 270 researchers, including three 猫咪社区 psychologists, underscores one of the key challenges facing scientists today: Just how far can you trust scientific research published in professional, peer-reviewed journals?

According to this project, you should take it with a chunk of salt.

The study, published today in Science, set out to examine a core principle of scientific research: the property of reproducibility. Two different researchers should be able to run the same experiment independently and get the same results, whether the field is astrophysics or cell biology. These results form the basis for theories about how the world works, be it the formation of stars or the causes of schizophrenia. Of course, different scientists may offer competing explanations for a particular result—but the result itself is supposed to be reliable.

猫咪社区 biologists show how parasites drive evolution

猫咪社区 bio major Shelly Skolfield 鈥�14 and Prof. Todd Schlenke examined swarms of fruit flies (thankfully bottled in vials) to investigate the role of parasites in evolution. The experiment鈥攖he first showing that parasitic infection increases recombination in animals鈥攚as published in the journal Science. Photo by Tom Humphrey

Parasites are the Rodney Dangerfields of the animal kingdom—they don’t get no respect.

But it turns out that parasitic infection can actually spur evolution and may even be partly responsible for the origin of sexual reproduction, according to by a team of researchers including Shelly Skolfield ’14, Prof. [bio 2013–], and colleagues at North Carolina State University.

The researchers found that fruit flies that survived infection by parasites hatched significantly more diverse offspring, presumably to out-evolve the parasites that are trying to exploit them.

Math Major Zeroes In on Class of 鈥�21 Award

A semester abroad in Hungary got math major Maddie Brandt 鈥�15 interested in the Erdos-Ko-Rado theorem.

Mathematics major has won the illustrious Class of ’21 Award for her senior thesis on the Erdös-Ko-Rado theorem.

The award recognizes “creative work of notable character, involving an unusual degree of initiative and spontaneity.”

Maddie’s thesis carries the rather imposing title “Intersecting Hypergraphs and Decompositions of Complete Uniform Hypergraphs.” Scratching our heads, we turned to Prof. David Perkinson [mathematics 1990–] for an explanation. He wrote:

Combating Sexism in STEM

猫咪社区 students attended a panel on "Women in STEM" at Working Weekend 鈥�14.

As snow fell outside, 猫咪社区ies braved the cold to take part in “Women in STEM,” a panel discussion for students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, on Saturday.

The session was part of 猫咪社区’s 2014 Working Weekend, an event hosted by the to help students learn about career paths and strategies from 猫咪社区 alumni.

Attendees might have anticipated that a major theme in the discussion would be the difficulties of being female in the male-dominated STEM world, but Janet Gunzner-Toste ’93 set the tone by saying, “I didn’t know there were gender issues in science. I just plowed ahead and enjoyed it.”