Biology Announcements
The following is a list of the latest news from the Department of Biological Sciences. For more general stories or announcements, please visit the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science homepage, the FAU Jupiter campus webpage, and the Owl Research & Innovation Magazine.
July 8, 2024
MARINE SCIENCE LAB receives $1.6 million from Glenn W. Bailey Foundation to extend by 5 years its Marine SEA (Science, Education, and Arts) Scholars Program within the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science's Marine Science Laboratory. SEA Scholars is directed by Dr. Jeanette Wyneken and is based in the Gumbo Limbo Environmental Complex in Boca Raton. The program provides financial assistance to students of academic excellence committed to being ambassadors of community outreach focused on FAU Marine Science Lab studies, discoveries and activities. Learn more:Marine Science Lab receives $1.6M from Glenn W. Bailey Foundation
July 3, 2024
Dr. Vanessa Fernandes has officially been awarded NSF funding of $1,392,426 (with $533,020 coming to FAU) for an ORCC (Organismal Response to Climate Change) grant, entitled "From Organisms to Ecosystems: Can Soil Microbes Maximize Dryland Resistance to Climate Change?" Dr. Fernandes is the lead PI and her colleagues include Dr. Jennifer Rudgers from UNM and Dr. Nicole Pietrisiak from UNLV as co-PIs. The work focuses on drylands soil microbial communities. Ecologists and microbiologists will work collaboratively on soil health solutions. Their goal is to build the first comprehensive database on dryland microbe physiological resistance to heat and drought and test the novel hypothesis that cross-domain assemblages composed of bacteria and fungi maximize the resistance of soil health to heat and drought. Congratulations Dr. Fernandes and team!
July 3, 2024
The Department of Research has awarded funding overloads for FAU Instructors to conduct research. Congratulations to Dr. Timothy Theisen, Dr. Melissa Reiterer, and Dr. Joshua Scholl!
July 1, 2024
The ELASMOLAB will be shown in episodes of Shark Attack 360 on NatGeo the first week of July - streaming on DisneyPlus and Hulu!
June 19, 2024
Dr. Jake Francis co-organized a colloquium with Dr. Jordan Dowell (LSU) at the annual meeting of the Botanical Society, which was funded by the phytochemistry section. The session was titled "Small molecules shaping big interactions: Interdisciplinary perspectives from early career botanists bridging biochemistry, physiology, animal behavior, ecology, and evolution" focused on bringing together diverse researchers to think about how integrative approaches can deepen our understanding of chemical ecology. Dr. Francis also gave a talk in the session "Microbial changes to floral phenotype have unexpected impacts on floral microbiome assembly - an agent-based modeling approach".
June 21, 2024
Dr. Sharon Homer-Drummond, an alumna from Dr. Sarah Milton's lab, presented a seminar on "Internship, Fellowships, and Funding Opportunities with AAAS and the NSF" to about 25 students, faculty, and post-docs in the College of Science.
June 17, 2024
Dr. Jeanette Wyneken, Dr. Sarah Milton and Dr. Annie Page (HBOI) featured in an FAU press release of FAQs on "Best Practices During (sea turtle) Nesting Season", which has also been picked up by a number of media outlets. Learn more here:
FAU Sea Turtle Experts Provide "Best Practices" During Nesting Season
June 14, 2024
Paola Gonzalez-Lerma defended her dissertation on "GABA-ergic neurotransmission and potential rescue methods from chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathies in C. elegans". Her advisor was Dr. Ken Dawson-Scully and co-advisor Dr. Howard Prentice
June 6, 2024
Beth Bowers, Ph.D. alumna and Dr. Stephen Kajiura had another paper published from her dissertation as reported in Science Daily and has been picked up by other media outlets as well:
Science Daily press
The actual paper is: Mary E. Bowers, Stephen M. Kajiura. A novel process to infer the reliability of ecological information derived from passive acoustic telemetry track reconstruction. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 2024; DOI:
British Ecological Society Journal
May 8, 2024
Dr. Oscar Alejandro Aleuy was a co-author on a paper published in Nature titled "A meta-analysis of global change drivers and the risk of infectious disease" found at
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07380-6
. He was also a co-author on a paper published Feb 7, 2024 in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution: "Disease-smart climate adaptation for wildlife management and conservation"
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.2716
April 26, 2024
Dr. Stacee Caplan was awarded the College Excellence in Staff Service Award for 2023 for her work as the Biology PhD Graduate Program Coordinator!
April 26, 2024
Dr. Tanja Godenschwege and Dr. Rodrigo Pena were awarded a $124,481.00 Tech fee grant to install high-end computers for data processing and courses in Jupiter and Boca. An Institutional license for Neurosim5 will soon become available as an FAU app, and some computers on both campuses will have access to the full Adobe Creative Suite in the next 3 years.
April 26, 2024
Dr. Ashkaan Fahimipour
had a paper accepted to Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, titled "Interspecific dispersal constraints suppress pattern formation in metacommunities". The special issue it will appear in is on "Diversity dependence of dispersal" and the final article is online at
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.13098
April 26, 2024
Joshua Reynolds, an FAU High-Wilkes Honor College dual enrolled undergraduate, received an OURI Summer research fellowship with Dr. Tanja Godenschwege and another of her students, Fernanda Salomao
Del Bianco, an FAU High dual enrolled undergraduate, received the John Nambu Research Fellowship.
April 26, 2024
Shant Faradyan, an undergraduate researcher in Dr. Nwadiuto Esiobu's Microbiome Innovation research center, will work with her on the Microbiome vaccine platform using a Summer 2024 SURF grant. Another Microbiome Innovation undergraduate researcher, Declan Sullivan, will have a well-paid experiential learning summer with US Sugar and USDA in Canal Point. Joel Eduard, also an undergraduate mentee in the Microbiome Innovation Cluster, will spend the summer conducting paid research experiential learning in John Hopkins, Maryland.
April 10, 2024
Graduate Student from FAU Harbor Branch, Hanna Bridgham, was awarded the Student Employee of the Year at the North campus awards. Hanna is also the Harbor Branch Student Association Vice President and is a Research Assistant at the Geochemistry and Geochemical Sensing Lab at FAU Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute
April 10, 2024
Graduate Student, Brent McKenna, from Dr. Baldwin's lab, won the OWL award. The Owl of the Year award is given to a student leader who is a graduating student and has shown commitment to the university, academic excellence, and community leadership.
April 9, 2024
Graduate student Kayla Ahlness in Dr. Kate Detwiler's lab won the FAU 3MT championship and on April 9 went on to the state contest
April 8, 2024
Carly Dempsey and Alex Hoey, undergraduate researchers in Dr. Marguerite Koch-Rose's lab, were the 1st Place Winners for the Poster People's Choice Award at the 14th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium that was held April 5.
April 8, 2024
Itzel Cabrera, Vitor Baruffi, Lara Darwish and Maria Merlano Gomez, undergraduate researchers in Dr. David Binninger's lab, won first place in the People's Choice category at the 14th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium that was held April 5.
April 8, 2024
Shan Damas, an undergraduate researcher in Dr. Nwadiuto Esiobu's lab, won the 2nd place Best People's Choice award at OURI at the 14th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium that was held April 5.
April 5, 2024
Dr. Vanessa Rodrigues received a partial scholarship to attend Columbia University's Quantitative Genomics Training for this June, allowing her to bring skills back to FAU
April 5, 2024
Cristina de la Rosa, Davie lab coordinator, won Staff Member of the Year for the Broward campuses
April 5, 2024
Dr. Rindy Anderson named the Faculty Member of the Year for the Broward campuses.
April 5, 2024
Undergraduate student spotlight: Joseph Swaress of Dr. Rindy Anderson's lab won the 2023 Undergraduate Researcher of the Year award. Joseph is also an Honors Biological Sciences Research member.
April 5, 2024
Undergraduate student spotlight: Abigail Shepard from Dr. Rodrigo Pena's lab received a summer undergraduate research fellowship (SURF) where she will be developing computational models in his lab for a collaboration with Dr. Fitzpatrick's lab at Max Planck Florida Institute (MPFI).
April 3, 2024
IB PhD student, Emily Turla of Dr. Jeanette Wyneken's lab, wins the Archie Carr award for best oral presentation in the "Biology" field at the International Sea Turtle Symposium in Thailand.
April 3, 2024
Dr. Jeanette Wyneken and Dr. Sarah Milton labs presented at the International Sea Turtle Symposium in Thailand. Dr. Michael Salmon and Dr. Jeanette Wyneken presented two posters, Dr. Sarah Milton presented two posters and the following students from the Wyneken lab gave oral presentations: PhD candidates Emily Turla, Gaby Carvajal, and Sam Kuschke. From the Milton lab 2 posters were presented by PhD candidate Schelli Linz and PhD candidate Heather Seaman presented one poster. Dr. Milton's undergraduate Rachel Southards also presented a poster at the symposium.
Updated July 10, 2024
