Professor Diana Wall presented the fourth public lecture in the series on research in Antarctica, at the Fort Collins Public Library. Each session has been well-attended and quite interesting. Dr. Wall's lecture was "The Hot Scoop on Cold Soils: The Dry Valleys of Antarctica".

Professor Daniel Bush organized a two day symposium at CSU on "Biofuels: Challenges and Opportunities". The meeting attracted 200 participants from CSU faculty and their laboratories, as well as interested professionals and investors from the region. This is part of the statewide "C2B2" effort to promote research and development of alternative and sustainable energy in Colorado.

Many students who conducted research projects within the Biology Department participated in the annual Celebrate Undergraduate Research and Creativity Symposium at the Lory student Center on April 17. Besides mentoring students, many Biology faculty and post-docs also helped to judge the research presentations.

Honors student Ashley Fenn has won an award at the annual Celebrate Undergraduate Research and Creativity symposium here in campus. Ms. Fenn is doing her research in Dr. Florant's lab.

Jennifer Cappa received high honors for her poster on "Phylogeny of the Celastreae (Celastraceae) inferred using chloroplast and nuclear loci" in the Celebrate Undergraduate Research and Creativity Symposium. Her research project was directed by Assistant Professor Mark Simmons

Graduate student Jessica Healy received a Sigma Xi Grant-in-aid of research to support her work on hibernation in Professor Greg Florant's laboratory.

The winners of 2007 Departmental awards for excellence in Teaching/Mentoring awards are: Graduate Student Teaching -- Sarah Bevins and Tyler Zarubin; Undergraduate Research Mentoring -- Assistant Professor Deborah Garrity; Undergraduate Teaching -- Assistant Professor Karen Raines; Graduate Education and Mentoring -- Assistant Professor Colleen Webb. Please join the Awards Committee in congratulating all the winners. We will have an Awards Ceremony to recognize their outstanding performance in teaching/mentoring on May 1st at 3.45 p.m in E112.

Graduate student Alicia Ebert, of the Garrity lab, is one of only 10 students selected by the Society for Developmental Biology to receive a travel award to present her research at the upcoming annual symposium in Cancun, Mexico this June.

Capt. Michael Foust of the United States Air Force and the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology successfully defended his M. S. thesis: "A Survey of Eimeria (Apicomplexa: Eimeridae) in black-tailed prairie dogs(Cynomys ludovicianus) in northeastern Colorado". Congratulations to Capt. Foust and his major advisor Professor Mike Antolin.

Graduate student Christine Bacon will be doing field work in the paramos of Ecuador May 7th-27th for a collaborative project with Drs. John McKay (BSPM) and Cameron Ghalambor (Biology) examining species diversity at latitudinal gradients.

Assistant Professor Colleen Webb gave an invited talk at the American Mathematical Society Southwest Sectional Meeting in Tucson, AZ on April 21.

Assistant Professor Mark Simmons presented a seminar on April 27th in the Department of Biology at the University of Colorado at Denver.

Professor Alan Knapp is in Washington DC to continue development work on the National Ecological Observatory Network, a.k.a. NEON, sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Professor Dan Bush was back at the University of Illinois for a conference on alternative energy with an emphasis on using biofuels.

Former postdoc Scott Medler, undergraduates Travis Lilley and Jocelyn Riehl, and Prof. Don Mykles authored a paper in the current issue of Journal of Experimental Zoology: "Myofibrillar gene expression in differentiating lobster claw muscles." Scott is a research assistant professor at University of Buffalo, Travis is in the graduate program at University of Washington, and Jocelyn enters the veterinary medicine program at Oregon State University this fall.