The 2017 Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists was held in Austin, Texas from July 12-16th. Many FAU faculty and students from across several campuses attended the event this year. Faculty and students from the FAU Boca Raton campus that attended included Drs. Marianne Porter, Stephen Kajiura, Jeanette Wyneken and Randy Brooks. The Baldwin laboratory from the FAU Davie campus, the Ajemian laboratory from the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, and the Moore laboratory from the Honors College also attended the conference this year.
Sarah Hoffmann, an Integrative Biology Ph.D. student that works in the Porter laboratory, presented her research in a talk entitled "Three-Dimensional Movements of the Pectoral Fin During Routine Turns in the Pacific Spiny Dogfish, Squalus suckleyi." The goal of her study is to describe pectoral fin rotation of Pacific spiny dogfish, Squalus suckleyi, during volitional turning behaviors using Video Reconstruction of Moving Morphology (VROMM) to track rigid body points in 3-D and quantify the movement of the pectoral fin in relation to the body. Her research reveals that, during volitional turning, the pectoral fin on the inside of the turn is depressed, protracted, and supinated and demonstrates the use of underwater cameras in a large volume for VROMM analyses. Hoffmann gave a great presentation and received the American Elasmobranch Society Student Research Award in the student talk competition. In addition, Integrative Biology alumna, Dr. Christine Bedore, received the Eugenie Clark Award for Early Career Female Scientist doing shark research and her Master’s student, Theresa Gunn (FAU undergrad alumna), won a research award as well.
