williamson receives NSF Grant to study mountain hummingbirds
Jessie Williamson, an assistant professor in the UW Department of Zoology and Physiology, received a four-year research grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), in the amount of $1.066 million, for her project titled “Genomic and eco-physiological mechanisms of hypoxia resistance in mountain hummingbirds.”
Williamson will serve as the grant’s sole principal investigator and lead a research team that will study the high-elevation resident northern giant hummingbird (Patagona peruviana) and the elevational migrant southern giant hummingbird (P. gigas), of which some populations shift seasonally from sea level to over 13,400 feet in elevation -- much higher than Medicine Bow Peak.
Alexa Majia, from the todd lab, receives an outstanding graduate senior award
Alexa Mejia, a Physiology major and undergraduate researcher in the Trey Todd's lab, received the Rosemarie Martha Spitaleri award for an Outstanding Graduating Senior in May. Only 2 out of 2000 eligible students at UW are chosen for these awards each year. Alexa is the second Todd Lab member to receive this award within the last 3 years.
Dr. bethann Merkle receives $1M NSF grant to study science communication
Bethann Garramon Merkle, a University of Wyoming assistant professor of practice, has been awarded a $1 million collaborative National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to study ways to enhance graduate students’ ability to communicate science effectively and ethically.
Bethann Merkle’s five-year grant is the first time that the NSF Division of Graduate Education has funded an Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) award at UW. The goals of IGE are to pilot, test and validate innovative approaches to graduate education and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community.
new graduate students - lena wigger & maura borden
The Barrile Lab will welcome two new graduate students this fall, Lena Wigger and Maura Borden. Lena studies how environmental change can influence wildlife disease dynamics, while Maura explores how artificial waterbodies provide aquatic habitat for native species. They join their fellow graduate student in the Barrile Lab, Joel Sorenson, who studies pathogen transmission in wildlife species across varying spatial scales. Finally, the Barrile Lab also welcomed Joshua Layfield as an Assistant Research Scientist earlier this summer. Joshua works on a variety of projects, with research foci related to movement ecology, population ecology, road ecology, and conservation biology.
