Biology Student wins honorable mention in national scholarship competition

Junior Biology major Laura Backus competed with students from across the nation and received an Honorable Mention in the 2007 competition for a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. Goldwater Scholarships are awarded to outstanding sophomore and junior students in natural science, mathematics or engineering.

As part of her honors thesis, Laura is analyzing the risk of emerging foreign animal diseases to Colorado.

Studying abroad in New Zealand, Laura worked as a research assistant on a large dairy medicine project. Seeing the differences in the medical and agricultural systems between the U.S. and New Zealand, she gained perspective "on how different diseases can affect the organization and social structure of entire nations." After graduating, Laura plans to obtain a D.V.M. and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Debbie Garrity, the 2007 recipient of the the College of Natural Sciences Award for Undergraduate Research Mentoring. Dr. Garrity has a tremendous impact on undergraduate research at Colorado State.

Professor Greg Florant will be in Atlanta, GA, April 1-2 to attend the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience Board meeting at Georgia State University.

Professor Greg Florant will be in Washington D.C. April 18-20 to attend the NIH Network of Minority Research investigators symposium. He will return again to Washington D.C. on April 30th to May 2nd as the Keynote speaker for the Physiology for High School Teachers symposium sponsored by APS at the Experimental Biology meetings, and he will present an invited talk on insulin regulation in mammals that hibernate.

Assistant Professor Shane Kanatous and Research Associate Linnea Pearson were invited and gave a seminar at Rocky Mountain High School on March 27 as part of the International Polar Year seminar series.

Assistant Professor Shane Kanatous gave a seminar on "Adaptations to Hypoxia: Lessons Learned from Diving Mammals" to the Health and Exercise Science Department at Colorado State University on April 6th.

Professor Pat Bedinger is on sabbatical leave in Australia until mid-July, and reports the following:

"I am an Institute for Advanced Studies Distinguished Fellow at La Trobe University in Bundoora, a suburb of Melbourne. It is a beautiful campus with a wildlife preserve and large trees full of lorikeets and cockatoos. I am in the Biochemistry Department, which is really excellent, working with Marilyn Anderson, who has done some key work in plant biology (discovered the RNases that cause self incompatibility) and who is now doing work on plant peptides called defensins. I am going to be working on getting a 3-dimensional structure of a pollen peptide called PRALF and am also going to do some "peptide discovery" studies with domesticated and wild tomatoes.

The weather has been beautiful -- this weekend we went to a very cool wildlife park called the Healseville Sanctuary and yesterday we swam in the Tasman sea off of St. Kilda beach in Melbourne."

Ayres E, Dromph KM, Cook R, Ostle N, Bardgett RD. 2007. The influence of below-ground herbivory and defoliation of a legume on nitrogen transfer to neighbouring plants. Functional Ecology 21, 256-263. (Dr. Ed Ayres is a post-doctoral researcher working with the lab group of Professor Diana Wall.

Professor Bruce Wunder gave a short course lecture on Mammals of the Fort Collins Open Spaces to the Fort Collins Master Naturalists group on Friday, 30 March.

Professor Daniel Bush organized a two day symposium at CSU on "Biofuels: Challenges and Opportunities". The meeting attracted 200 participants from both CSU faculty and their laboratories, as well as interested professionals and investors from the region.