VT College of Science Quarterly August 2014 Vol. 2 No. 1 | Page 20

COLLEGE NEWS & NOTES
Camille Harris, a doctoral student in the Hawley lab, received
a Dissertation Award from the
Southern Regional Education
Board. The SREB’s State Doctoral Scholars Program is part Camille Harris
of a nationwide initiative, the
Compact for Faculty Diversity,
to produce more minority Ph.D.s and encourage them to seek faculty positions.

Congratulations to David
Popham who has been
recognized with the 2013 Jack
Kenney Award for Outstanding Service from the Journal of
Bacteriology for his “numerous
and timely reviews that set the David Popham
standard for quality, fairness,
and promptness.”
The January issue of the
journal Molecular Ecology published a paper by Stephanie
Voshell and Khidir Hilu enttiled “Canary grasses (Phalaris,
Poaceae): biogeography,
Stephanie
molecular dating and the role
Voshell
of floret structure in dispersal.”
The article is available free online here.
Liwu Li received a new collaborative National Institutes of
Health grant with colleagues at
National Jewish Health, “IRAKM in lung defense against
Rhinovirus infection.” The
5-year project provides more
than $640,000 to the Li lab and

20

Liwu Li

College of Science Quarterly

Virginia Tech to examine the hypothesis that
IRAK-M, a key negative regulator in immune
signaling, may compromise anti-viral defense
by suppressing interferon gene expression.
Scientific American has
recently published a research
paper regarding the youngest
volcanoes in Eastern North
American by Esteban Gazel.
You can find the article here.

tion in African Killifishes.” The Biology Alumni
Undergraduate Research Excellence Award - to
Zach Gajewski in Lisa Belden’s laboratory for
“The Effect of Zooplankton Feeding on the
Amphibian Chytrid Fungus.” The Robert Jones
Undergraduate Research Excellence Award - to
David Vasques in Dana Hawley’s laboratory
for “Social Behavior and Disease Transmission
in House Finches.”

Joel McGlothin and collaborator Laura Galloway, of UVA have a paper in
Evolution, entitled, “The contribution of maternal effects to selection response: an empirical
test of competing models.” The paper can be
viewed here.

Congratulations to Tony Giuffre, a doctoral
candidate in biogeochemistry for his 2014
student research grant from the Mineralogy/
Petrology fund of the Mineralogical Society
of America for “Deciphering the influence of
polysaccharide chemistry and ionic strength
on the kinetics of calcium carbonate nucleation.”

Each year three undergraduate research
grants are made to support research programs
for students in Biological Sciences. For 2014,
the Stacey Smith Biology Research Excellence Award, was given to Elizabeth Lee with
Bruce Turner’s laboratory for her proposal,
“Evolutionary Genetics of Growth Accelera-

Benjamin Webb, a doctoral student in the
Scharf Lab, received the Best Oral Presentation
Award at a recent American Society of Microbiology, Virginia Branch meeting. His talk, “The
Sinorhizobium meliloti chemoreceptor McpU
directly binds proline and mediates chemotaxis towards host planet exudats.”

GEOSCIENCES

Jianhua Xing served as
co-corresponding author for a
paper published in PLoS One,
“Tumor-specific chromosome
mis-segregation controls cancer
plasticity by maintaining tumor Jianhua Xing
heterogeneity.” The work
reveals a simple mechanism for
how cancer cells gain evolutionary advantages
through chromosome missegretation-induced
cell plasticity, and emphasizes the importance
of viewing cancers as ecosystems.

From left: Ben Heitoff of Richmond, Va., a
junior biology major, Niki Camateros-Mann
of Kennett Square, Penn., a junior biology
major, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe,
and Jennifer Park of Lorton, Va., a senior
biochemistry major. The students were in
Richmond to attend a reception planned by
the Richmond Alumni Chapter and while in
the city they met with state legislators and
the governor.

Esteban Gazel

Keeping up with...
Martin Chapman
Martin is the Director of the Virginia
Tech Seismological Observatory. The
VTSO operates a digital seismic network
with stations throughout Virginia and
contributes to earthquake monitoring,
information dissemination, and seismic
hazard assessment objecti fW2