The Integrative Biology (IB) Retreat brings all the graduate students in the Integrative Biology PhD program together as well as recruit’s new students. The IB PhD program currently has 77 students from both the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and College of Medicine, encompassing different disciplines and spread out over our different campuses. Given the diverse research interests and locations of the students in the program, many of them do not get a chance to interact during the year. The retreat provides this platform in an atmosphere much like that of a national meeting. This annual recruiting event is an opportunity to highlight our program to prospective students, feature the diverse study body and research projects, and provide a forum for program members and faculty to address concerns and receive feedback in hope of building a better Ph.D. program.
This year the 12th annual IB Retreat was held on Friday, February 14th on the FAU Boca Raton campus. The morning poster session took place in the Live Oak Pavilion, where 56 graduate students presented their research to program members, faculty, staff, and prospective students. The winners of this year's poster contest received a grad bag full of FAU promotional items. Morgan Slevin, who works in the laboratory of
Dr. Rindy Anderson, took 1st place in poster session A for his project entitled "Smarts and symbiosis: evidence for the avian gut-brain axis in a model songbird." Braden Ruddy, who works in the laboratory of
Dr. Marianne Porter, took 1st place in poster session B for his project entitled "Volitional swimming kinematics of schooling blacktip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus) in the wild."
The afternoon events featured a program update, poster session awards, a Distinguished Alumni award presentation and talk, and a keynote speaker to inspire, motivate and educate our broad audience of students. The distinguished alumni recipient
Dr. Kimberly Rowland, who worked in the laboratory of
Dr. Rod Murphey, gave a wonderful presentation about her journey as a Ph.D. student and techniques that she used to overcome obstacles during graduate school. The keynote address was given by
Dr. Raul Gonzalez, the Director of the Substance Use and HIV Neuropsychology lab at Florida International University. His research focuses on the interplay of neurocognitive functions, drugs of abuse, and risky behaviors, often with participants with or at risk for HIV. Afterwards, all retreat participants attended a networking mixer, where students and faculty had the opportunity to interact with both the keynote and alumni speakers.
We greatly appreciate the support the many sponsors of this event, your support helps make this retreat a huge success: the Association of Integrative Biology Student (AIBS) Organization, the Department of Biological Sciences (Dr. Sarah Milton), the Department of Biomedical Science (Dr. Janet Robishaw), the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science (Dr. Ata Sarajedini), the Jupiter Life Science Initiative (Dr. Rod Murphey), the Center for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (Dr. Gregg Fields), the FAU Brain Institute (Dr. Randy Blakely), and the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA).
