Professor Sönke Johnsen joined a team of researchers on the NOAA Research Vessel Point Sur to explore animal life in the midnight zone of the Gulf of Mexico. The group included Sönke's former student and Duke graduate Dr.
The Biology Department is pleased to announce that Pelin Volkan has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure, and Sheila Patek to the rank of full Professor. Both these appointments will take effect on July 1. In addition, Professor Emily Bernhardt has been named James B. Duke Professor of Biology. Congratulations to all!
Assistant Professor Gustavo Silva has joined with other junior faculty to establish the Duke Black Think Tank (BTT), with a view to supporting Black faculty, reaching out to Black students and staff, and fostering a more inclusive environment at Duke. Gustavo and his colleagues hope to encourage multidisciplinary collaborations uniting BTT faculty. The first project is "Bahia, Brazil and the US South: Race, Genetics, and Culture in the African Diaspora," whose goal is "to illuminate how two racially and culturally distinct societies were formed despite relying for centuries
At its 2019 Annual Meeting, held April 27 - 30, the National Academy of Sciences elected Professor Susan Alberts to membership. Well done, Susan! The Biology Department offers its heartiest congratulations. Susan is one of 100 new members and 25 foreign associates.
Congratulations to Professor Mark Rausher, who has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Academy was founded in 1780 with Benjamin Franklin and George Washington among its charter members. The many purposes defined by its Charter include promoting knowledge of the natural history of the country and the use of its natural resources, medical discoveries, philosophical enquiries and experiments, improvements in agriculture; "and, in fine to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor,
Several current and incoming Biology graduate students have competed for Graduate Research Fellowships from the National Science Foundation. Five students won Fellowships and three received Honorable Mentions. Our winners were continuing student Hannah Devens (Wray Lab) and Jason Dinh (Patek Lab), and incoming students Blake Fauskee (Pryer Lab), Jake Nash (Vilgalys Lab), and Anita Simha (Wright Lab). We congratulate them and wish them continued success in their graduate studies.
Grad Student Rachel Roston is featured in Duke Today for her work on whale skulls. Cetacean skulls are remarkably different from those of other mammals, which have the same bones in the same relative position. “We’re weirded out by these skulls,” said one of her undergraduate students. You can read all about it at the link.
Assistant Professor Jean Philippe Gibert has been awarded a Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigator Award by the American Society of Naturalists. The award was established in 1984 to recognize outstanding and promising work by investigators who received their doctorates in the three years preceding the application deadline or who are in their final year of graduate school. According to the notice, "The committee was tremendously impressed both with your integrative research accomplishments to date, and with your exceptional promise for the future." As part of
Nina Sherwood will join faculty from other departments, as well as staff, administrators, and students, in a working group to explore ways that science, technology, engineering, mathematics, arts, and humanities (broadly referred to as STEAM) interface with one another. The "Exploring STEAM (Science, Arts, and Humanities) at Duke" group hopes to catalogue current interdisciplinary work and stimulate future research, coursework, and public engagement. The project will be funded by seed money from the Provost's Office. Eight groups have received funding f
Department of Biology
