Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Kalisz

UNDERstory Game is Award Finalist

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Dr. Susan Kalisz, former head of the EEB department, along with Cary Staples of the School of Design and Tim Arment from the College of Architecture and Design have created the UNDERstory board game based on their long-term research. The game has received a lot of attention, and the creators are finalists for a 2023 James Paul GEE! Award!

Check out the game here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD0fSBNVfiQ

and vote for UNDERstory to win the GEE! Award here: https://forms.gle/R3KEi7AFbDA6NRy49

Kalisz, Heberling, and Collaborators Receive ESA’s Mercer Award

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WildflowersSusan Kalisz, professor and head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and former post-doctoral fellow Mason Heberling, now assistant curator of botany at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, received the Ecological Society of America’s (ESA) George Mercer Award for their paper, “Phenological mismatch with trees reduces wildflower carbon budgets,” published in Ecology Letters in February 2019.

“The Mercer Award is one of ESA’s most prestigious awards,” Kalisz said. “We were all thrilled that our paper was chosen.”

Co-authors and co-awardees include Caitlyn MacKenzie from the University of Maine, Jason Fridley from Syracuse University, and Richard Primack from Boston University. 

Researchers leveraged the integration of historical records and contemporary experiments on many wildflower species to see how the overstory and understory responded differently to climate change and the unexpected consequences that followed. They used historical phenological observations, the oldest of which were made by Henry David Thoreau in the 1850s, alongside long-term temperature records, contemporary garden experiments from Kalisz’s NSF LTREB funding, and a simulation model.

“Our model projects a 10-48 percent reduction carbon gain and lower fitness for forest wildflowers in the coming century,” Kalisz said. “This happens because the overstory leaves emerge in response to warming spring temperatures, which limits the later emerging understory wildflowers’ photosynthesis, creating a phenological mismatch.”

The George Mercer Award is given for an outstanding ecological research paper published by a younger researcher, with the lead author 40 years of age or younger at the time of publication. The paper must have been published in 2018 or 2019 to be eligible for this year’s award, which will be presented in August 2020 at ESA’s (virtual) annual meeting along with a video depicting the work. Heberling and Mackenzie, both younger researchers, will share the monetary prize.

Read the paper online here.

–By Kelly Alley

Kalisz Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

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susan kaliszSusan Kalisz, the College of Arts and Sciences Excellence Professor and head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, is a newly elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences class of 2020.

“I am honored to join such a distinguished group of scholars and leaders in the arts and sciences,” Kalisz said. “It’s still a bit of a shock, but a wonderful piece of good news during the uncertain time we are all experiencing.”

The Academy announced its newest members April 23, 2020, with the election of 276 artists, scholars, scientists, and leaders in the public, non-profit, and private sectors.

“The members of the class of 2020 have excelled in laboratories and lecture halls, they have amazed on concert stages and in surgical suites, and they have led in board rooms and courtrooms,” said Academy President David W. Oxtoby. “With today’s election announcement, these new members are united by a place in history and by an opportunity to shape the future through the Academy’s work to advance the public good.”

The American Academy of Arts & Sciences was founded in 1780 by John Adams, John Hancock, and others who believed the new republic should honor exceptionally accomplished individuals and engage them in advancing the public good.

Two hundred and forty years later, the Academy continues to dedicate itself to recognizing excellence and relying on expertise – both of which seem more important than ever.

“We congratulate these incoming members of the Academy for excelling in a broad array of fields; we want to celebrate them and learn from them,” said Nancy C. Andrews, Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Academy. “When Academy members come together, bringing their expertise and insights to our work, they help develop new insights and potential solutions for some of the most complex challenges we face.”

The Academy’s projects and publications are focused on the arts and humanities, democracy and justice, education, global affairs, and science.

Current Academy members represent today’s innovative thinkers in every field and profession, including more than 250 Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners.

The new members join the company of Academy members elected before them, including Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton in the eighteenth century; Ralph Waldo Emerson and Maria Mitchell in the nineteenth; Robert Frost, Martha Graham, Margaret Mead, Milton Friedman, and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the twentieth; and – in the past two decades – Antonin Scalia, Michael Bloomberg, John Lithgow, Judy Woodruff, and Bryan Stevenson.

International Honorary Members include Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Laurence Olivier, Mary Leakey, John Maynard Keynes, Akira Kurosawa, and Nelson Mandela.

The complete class of 2020 is listed here.

Grad Student Senate Awards

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The Graduate Student Senate Awards were held on April 4.  Check out all the winners from EEB!

Graduate Research Mentor of the Year:  Associate Professor Elisabeth Schussler

Excellence in Teaching:  Justin Hendy (Small Lab)

Excellence in Research: Sara Lipshutz (Derryberry Lab)

Excellence in Service: Alannie Grant (Kalisz Lab)

 

EEB Departmental Awards 2017

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Congratulations to all the graduate students, undergraduate students, and staff who received awards at the EEB Awards Ceremony on May 1.   To view more photos, please visit the EEB Facebook page.  For more information about any of the awards below, please visit the Departmental Awards and Scholarships page.

2017 EEB Outstanding Master’s Thesis
Alix Pfennigwerth (Schweitzer Lab)

2017 EEB Jim Tanner Outstanding Dissertation
Michael Van Nuland (Schweitzer Lab)

2017 EEB Best Progress Toward Dissertation
Sam Borstein (O’Meara Lab)

2017 EEB Sandy Echternacht Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student
Tyson Paulson (Fordyce Lab)

2017 EEB Outstanding Publication by a Graduate Student
Rachel Wooliver (Schweitzer Lab)

2017 EEB Tom Hallam Appreciation Award
Angela Chuang (Riechert Lab)

2017 EEB Outstanding Outreach and Community Service by a Graduate Student
Alannie-Grace Grant (Kalisz Lab)

2017 Outstanding Undergraduate Poster Award
Sarah Ottinger (Classen Lab)

2017 EEB Outstanding Undergraduate
Patrick McKenzie (Armsworth Lab)

2017 EEB Outstanding Undergraduate Research
Hannah Anderson (Riechert Lab)

2017 EEB Undergraduate for Professional Promise
Katie Plant (Williams Lab)

2017 EEB Outstanding Outreach and Community Service by an Undergraduate Student
Heiler Meek (Schweitzer Lab)

2017 EEB Outstanding Administrative Service Award
Marva Anderson

Going Above and Beyond Award
Jess Welch (Simberloff & McCracken Labs)

Graduate Student Senate Awards 2017

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Congratulations to the EEB grad students who won Graduate Student Senate awards this year. There are a few different categories:

Research: This award is presented to graduate students who have received national and/or international recognition in their fields and show professional promise in their areas of research and creative achievement.

  • Sam Borstein (O’Meara Lab)
  • Angela Chuang (Riechert Lab)
  • Aaron Floden (Schilling Lab)
  • Alanni-Grace Grant (Kalisz Lab)
  • Chloe Lash (Kwit Lab)
  • Brian Looney (Matheny Lab)
  • Margaret Mamantov (Sheldon Lab)
  • Austin Milt (PhD 2015, Armsworth Lab)
  • Morgan Roche (Kalisz Lab)
  • Michael Van Nuland (Schweitzer Lab)
  • Rachel Wooliver (Schweitzer Lab)

Service: This award is presented to graduate students who are extraordinary campus leaders or participate in service learning and other community initiatives.

  • Christine Dumoulin (Armsworth Lab)

Teaching: This award is given to graduate teaching assistants for extraordinary performance in teaching.

  • Amanda Benoit (Kalisz Lab)
  • Liam Mueller (Schweitzer Lab)
  • Tyson Paulson (Fordyce Lab)

 

EEB Students Win NSF GRFP Fellowships

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EEB students have done very well again in the 2017 round of NSF GRFP (Graduate Research Fellowship Program) fellowships!  Our congratulations go to finishing undergraduate Patrick McKenzie (Armsworth Lab), incoming graduate student Rachel Swenie (Matheny Lab), and current PhD student Morgan Roche (Kalisz Lab).

In addition, two EEB alumni won GRFP awards: Robert Connell (BS 2015, Kwit Lab, now at Kansas State University), and Kenna Rewcastle (BS 2015, Classen Lab)

PhD student Chloe Lash (Kwit Lab) received an honorable mention for her proposal.

A total of 15 NSF GRFP awardees and 3 honorable mentions were affiliated with the University of Tennessee (either as undergraduates, current students, or both), this means EEB accounts for 1/3 of UT’s NSF awardees and honorable mentions!

 

NSF-DDIG Grants for Grant and Borstein

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Alannie-Grace Grant (Kalisz Lab) and Sam Borstein (O’Meara Lab) have been awarded Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grants from the National Science Foundation.  Congratulations to you both!

Grant’s dissertation research is entitled, “Selection, niche breadth and plant mating system evolution: Are wider niche breadths of selfing species shaped by water limitation?”

Borstein’s dissertation research is called, “Morphological consequences of trophic evolution.”