Congratulations to Rich Centore

Congratulations to Rich Centore (SMC '03), who recently had a research paper published in Molecular Cell, a higly respected journal in the field.  The article, Spartan/C1ord124, a Reader of PCNA Ubiquitylation and a Regulator of  UV-Induced DNA Damage Response, was published in the June 8 issue. Rich is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Ceter at Harvard Medical School; Rich was also featured in an alumnus profile in our Spring 2010 edition of Biology Matters, our e-newsletter.

What's New ??

Find out - the Spring 2012 Biology Matters e-newsletter has updates, along with profiles of some students and alumni, and some information about summer activities.  Follow the link, to find out what's new....

Students recognized

Each year, many of our Biology majors are inducted to various honor societies in recognition of their outstanding accomplishments in academics and research. This spring, we are pleased to recognize the following inductees:

Phi Beta Kappa: Kristen Cowens, Allen Hubbard, Bridget Levine, Karri Makinen

Beta Beta Beta (Tri-Beta): Stephanie Bacon, Max Brenner, Anne Burnham, Kayla Carnell, Kristen Cowens, Anna Fetterolf, Courtney Gannon, Laura Ostrout, Kelsey Velie, and Sara Williams. The following graduating seniors had been inducted in the past - Amy Blackey, Gabrielle Buczek, Christopher Dustin, Emma Fox, Jacob Girard, Michael Herring, Spenser Johnson, Bridget Levine, Tom Perekslis, Janel Roberge, Ian Sullivan, Jake Withee.

Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society: Alli Bleil, Kristen Cowens, Jake Girard, Bridget Levine, Stephanie Locke, Tom Perekslis, Janel Roberge, Ian Sullivan

CONGRATULATIONS !!

Hartnett Endowment Ignites Ecosystem Recovery Research

The John C. Hartnett Endowment was established in 2000 by Paul A. Lachance, Ph.D. (’55) and Therese Lachance to honor Professor Emeritus John C. Hartnett (’43) for his dedication to excellence in teaching and his outstanding influence on biology and other students at St. Michael’s College for forty-four years. The endowment provides funds to support student-faculty research opportunities, and when the endowment was first established there were very few funding sources to support student research - especially full-time research for the summer. Therefore, the Hartnett Endowment became a very important means of supporting summer research students for quite a few years.

Thanks to the support of our generous alumni, the Hartnett Endowment has grown considerably. In addition, in more recent years our faculty and students have had success in attracting other funding sources to support summer research, thereby increasing the overall amount of summer research activity in the Biology Department, but without drawing heavily on the increasing funds in the Endowment. This year, however, the Hartnett Endowment will provide a huge boost in kicking off a new research initiative in the Biology Department.

For several years, our Biology Department has had a cooperative research relationship with Camp Johnson, the Army National Guard facility adjacent to our campus. The Camp Johnson property supports the largest remaining stand of sandplain forest in Vermont, a forest community that thrives in sandy, low-nutrient soils and that requires regular fires to be sustained. As part of the long-term management plan, some sections of the Camp Johnson sandplain forest were burned in the mid to late 1990s. Each fall for the last six years, our students taking BI 151 (Introduction to Ecology and Evolution) have studied plants and invertebrates in both the burned and unburned sections of the forest to see how they differ.

In a new research initiative made possible by support from the Hartnett Endowment, a new section of the forest will be burned in spring of 2013. This not only will provide an outstanding research opportunity, but it also will benefit the management and maintenance of this rare forest community. To provide background information needed for future studies of forest recovery, Devin Latremore (’14), Nicholas Salvas (’15), Jennifer Labrenz (’13), and Aerielle Matsangos (’15) (in photo, left to right), and will be working with professors Valerie Banschbach and Peter Hope in the summer of 2012 to study the plant and invertebrate communities in areas to be burned in 2013 and in adjacent sections of the forest. In addition, our first-year students taking BI 151 in the fall of 2012 will also be providing critical foundation data in preparation for the burn.

This new research initiative, which includes collaboration among the St. Michael’s Biology Department, Camp Johnson, the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, and The Nature Conservancy, will provide a living laboratory of sandplain forest recovery right next door – something that students and faculty will be studying for years, and perhaps decades, to come.

Thank You...

...to the many accepted students and their families who came to visit us this past Monday (Feb 27). We had a great crowd, filling a large function room, and with lots of good questions on a wide range of topics - internship opportunities, pre-health advising, study abroad, career preparation, the basic biology curriculum, general academic advising....things that you should be asking before making a decision on where to attend college in the fall. For more information about our program, please visit the Biology Department Website.

I also appreciate the fact that several of you took advantage of some time at the end of the day to visit our department, look around, and ask some more questions before you left campus. Thanks for your interest in St. Mike's - and best wishes wherever you decide to go in the fall. I hope that we will see some of you here.

For those who were not there - have no fear! There are additional Accepted Student Academic Days on March 7 and March 26, and also Accepted Student Open Houses plannd for April 14 and 21. If you'd like more information, please contact the Admissions Office.

Anna Michael ('07) now in veterinary practice in Minnesota

I just received this piece of exciting news about Anna Michael, who graduated from the SMC Biology program in 2007, went to veterinary school at the University of Minnesota, earned Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine and Masters of Public Health degrees, and has now taken over a veterinary clinic in the "Land of 10,000 Lakes".

Congratulations and best wishes to Anna !!

Happy Holidays

With the fall semester behind us, I'd like to wish everyone the best for the upcoming holidays and new year. Our fall was quite busy, with well-attended admissions events in October and November, both of which included a Biology Department Open House.

Read about some of our other recent news and activities in the Fall 2011 edition of Biology Matters, our e-newsletter, which is now available.