New Herbarium Director
Jessica Budke has accepted our offer to become an Assistant Professor in EEB and the Director of TENN! She will arrive on campus June 1, 2016.
Welcome Susan Kalisz!
Susan Kalisz joined EEB as professor and head of department on August 1. She comes to UT from the University of Pittsburgh where she was professor of biological sciences for nineteen years and served as director of graduate studies and chair of the graduate program oversight committee.
Kalisz’s research interests are two-pronged: the mating system and the evolutionary process, and biotic interactions, population fitness, and community invasion.
Armsworth Awarded Cox Professorship
Paul Armsworth has been selected as a James R. Cox Professor. The three-year award provides Armsworth with a stipend of $25,500 to support his research. Recipients are chosen by a committee for their excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service.
Woody Plants of Kentucky and Tennessee
Eugene Wofford has co-authored a new book called Woody Plants of Kentucky and Tennessee: The Complete Winter Guide to Their Identification and Use. The guide enables people to identify trees, shrubs, and woody vines during the winter months, when the absence of leaves and fruit makes plants difficult to recognize. It also provides notes on practical uses for the plants. The book features more than 400 species and is written for amateurs as well as professional botanists. It was published in October by the University Press of Kentucky and is also available from Amazon.com.
Bat Mania
Gary McCracken took 3 graduate students (Amanda Janicki, Riley Bernard, and Melqui Gamba Rios) to the International Bat Research Conference in Costa Rica in August. It was the largest bat meeting ever, with over 600 participants from 55 countries. Below is a photo of the group wearing leaf-noses (which tropical bats have – see the link for a news article about the conference and tropical bats).
http://www.seabcru.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ibrc_2013_abstracts.pdf
NIMBioS Renewal
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $18.6 million to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, for the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) to continue its interdisciplinary efforts in developing new mathematical approaches to problems across biology, from the level of the genome to individuals to entire ecosystems. EEB’s Lou Gross has been the director of NIMBioS since its inception in September 2008.
Impactful research
The most popular paper in the Quarterly Review of Biology over the past three years, based on downloads, is “Homosexuality as a Consequence of Epigenetically Canalized Sexual Development” by Rice, Friberg, and EEB Distinguished Professor Sergey Gavrilets. This paper has been accessed 29,788 times, over fourfold the number of accesses of the next most popular paper in the journal’s history.
Mass extinction of Pacific Island Birds
Research Assistant Professor Alison Boyer was interviewed today on local NPR station WUOT about her recent PNAS paper about extinctions of birds on Pacific islands. The interview can be heard here.
Rock iguanas
EEB faculty member Charlie Kwit was recently featured in a video by the Shedd Aquarium about rock iguanas. For more information about the science, see here. The video is embedded below.
Multiple EEB members receive Chancellor’s Awards
The UT Chancellor’s Office gives annual awards to recognize “extraordinary achievements” for faculty, staff, students, and other members of the EEB community. EEB-associated members received a disproportionate number of awards, including half of the awards for community service:
Gary McCracken — Alexander Prize, recognizing superior teaching and distinguished scholarship
Rosie Gillespie, UT PhD 1986 (advisor Susan Riechert), won the Notable UT Woman award, which this year was given to an alumna
Paul Armsworth — an award for Professional Promise in Research & Creative Achievement
Ken McFarland — an award for Extraordinary Community Service, due to his commitment to the Wildflower Pilgrimage
PhD student Jess Welch — an award for Extraordinary Community Service
GREBE (graduate student organization, EEB) — an award for Extraordinary Community Service
Hannah Long was named a Top Collegiate Scholar
And also Shanna Pendergast, who recently joined Biology as an advisor, won an award for excellence in undergraduate advising