Category: News

Fruit Fly Genetics Reveal Pesticide Resistance and Insight Into Cancer

June 5, 2015—

For being so small, fruit flies have had a large impact on genetic research. Thomas Werner, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Michigan Technological University, has bridged the miniscule and the massive in an effort to better understand the mechanisms behind several unique features of fruit fly genes.

Over the past week, several studies that Werner co-authored have been published in PLoS ONE, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Nature Education. All are linked by Drosophila—a genus of fruit flies—and the insights that fruit fly genetics provide on human health, specifically cancer-causing genes.

More here

Kerfoot honored for 25 years of service

Michigan Tech Employee Service Recognition Event

On Wednesday, May 6th, faculty and staff members, along with their guests, gathered at the Memorial Union Ballroom for an awards dinner recognizing 25, 30, 35, and 40 years of service to Michigan Tech.

The following employees were recognized.

25 Years

  • Ricky Ahola, Facilities Management
  • Victoria Bergvall, Humanities
  • Leonard Bohmann, College of Engineering
  • Jacek Borysow, Physics
  • Clifton Brusso, Facilities Management
  • Tomas Co, Chemical Engineering
  • Kelly Dube, Financial Services & Operations
  • Nikki Ebert, Dining Services
  • James Frendewey, School of Technology
  • Timothy Gasperich, Chemical Engineering
  • Christopher Green, Keweenaw Research Center
  • Janet Hayden, Vice President for Governmental Relations & Secretary of the Board of Trustees
  • Michael Hendricks, Vice President for Research
  • Robert Hiltunen, Auxiliary Services
  • Jackie Kentala, Athletic & Recreation Facility Operations
  • Charles Kerfoot, Biological Sciences
  • Alexander Kostinski, Physics
  • Joel Kunnari, Keweenaw Research Center
  • Denise Laux, Chemistry
  • Jerry Lutz, Chemistry
  • Walter Milligan, Materials Science and Engineering
  • Susan Niemi, Chemical Engineering
  • Gina Stevens, Social Sciences
  • Michael Tomasi, Facilities Management
  • Jeffrey Toorongian, William G. Jackson Center for Teaching & Learning
  • Judy Verran, Dining Services
  • Craig Waddell, Humanities
  • James Waineo, Keweenaw Research Center
  • Donald Williams, Counseling Services
  • James Wood, Geological & Mining Engineering & Sciences
  • Song-Lin Yang, Mechanical Engineering & Engineering Mechanics

30 Years

  • Terry Anderson, Kinesiology & Integrative Physiology
  • Joyce Fontaine, Financial Aid Administration
  • Don Kilpela, Merchandising Operations
  • Susan Laajala, Financial Services & Operations
  • Peter Laks, School of Forest Resources & Environmental Sciences
  • Amitabh Narain, Mechanical Engineering & Engineering Mechanics
  • Anita Quinn, Vice President for Administration
  • Nils Ruonavaara, Keweenaw Research Center
  • Madhukar Vable, Mechanical Engineering & Engineering Mechanics

35 Years

  • Theodore Bornhorst, AE Seaman Mineral Museum
  • Sheila Laitinen, Facilities Management

40 Years

  • Daniel Nutini, Dining Services

Retirees

  • Lisa Moyle, Housing and Residential Life

This year’s Staff Service Recognition luncheon will be held on June 17.

Congratulations to all honorees.

Faculty, instructors and graduate students represented in the top 10% for spring term.

 

Congratulations to the following faculty, instructors and graduate students from Biological Sciences Department for their inclusion in the list of campus wide, top 10% instructors in Spring 2015 semester.

The following faculty received scores above 4.54 out of 5 on average of 7 elements of university-wide class size group with response rate of >50% on student evaluations of their lecture classes:

  • Dr. Casey Huckins, Associate Professor
  • Ms. Brigitte Morin, Lecturer
  • Ms. Karyn Fay, Professor of Practice
  • Dr. Thomas Snyder, Associate Professor
  • Dr. Thomas Werner, Assistant Professor

The following instructors received scores above 4.47 out of 5 on average of 7 elements of university-wide class size group with response rate of >50% on student evaluations of their lecture/lab classes:

  • Ms. Ann Cooke, instructor
  • Ms. Emily Geiger, Graduate student
  • Dr. Jennifer Sanders, instructor
  • Mr. Travis Wakeham, Undergraduate student

Kerfoot Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

Charles KerfootProfessor Charles Kerfoot (BioSci) has received the 2015 IAGLR Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association for Great Lakes Research. The award recognizes important and continued contributions to the field of Great Lakes research for 20 years or more. In a letter notifying Kerfoot of the award, Douglas D. Kane, president of the IAGLR, congratulated him on an “incredibly productive and significant career.”

Dr. Kerfoot will be presenting at IAGLR 2015 (http://www.iaglr.org/iaglr2015/) on how Bythotrephes affects zooplankton community composition, at the University of Vermont in late May.

 

Charles Kerfoot Charles Kerfoot Charles Kerfoot

Calumet High School Places First in Bioathlon

Calumet 1st place smallby Jenn Donovan

A team of high school students from Calumet High School took top honors in Michigan Tech’s annual Bioathlon, a biology competition held Wednesday.

A team from West Iron County High School placed second and a team from A.D. Johnston HIgh School in Bessemer was third.

The Bioathlon’s goal is to stimulate interest in biology and in problem-solving among high school students. Teams from 15 Upper Peninsula high schools participated. Each team consisted of four students who have not taken biology classes beyond the traditional sophomore general biology course.

The teams tackled the same four problems: dissection of a dogfish shark; biochemical effects on enzymes; field identification; and a medical laboratory science challenge.

A workshop on animal migration was offered for the teachers who accompanied the students to the competition.

Undergraduate and graduate students and biology faculty participated in designing the problems and supervising the competition.

Funding for the Bioathlon was provided by Michigan Tech Admissions, the Department of Biological Sciences, the Michigan Tech Fund and alumni Mark Cowan, Robert and Kathryn DellAngelo, Olive Kimball, Nancy Auer and Janice Glime.

More information on Bioathlon is available here.

Tang, Werner awarded Research Excellence Funds

REF Awards Announced

The Vice President for Research Office announces the Research Execellence Fund Awards. Thanks to the volunteer review committees, as well as the deans and department chairs, for their time spent on this important internal research award process.

Infrastructure Enhancement Grants:

  • Stephen Kampe, IMP/MSE. Environmental Test Chamber
  • Sean Kirkpatrick, BRC/Biomed Eng. Repair and Upgrade Advanced Fluorescent Microscope
  • Will Cantrell, EPSSI/Physics. Acquisition of a Cloud Condensation Nucleus Counter
  • Cary Chabalowski, Chemistry. Acquisition of a DNA Synthesizer
  • Andrew Burton, ESC/SFRES. Remote Data Acquisition

Scholarship and Creativity Grants:

  • Joel Neves, VPA
  • Chelsea Schelly, SS
  • Marika Seigel, Humanities

Research Seed Grants:

  • Xiaoqing Tang, Bio Science
  • Feng Zhao, Biomed Eng
  • Snehamoy Chatterjee, GME
  • Loredana Valenzano, Chemistry
  • Thomas Werner, BRC/Bio Sci
  • Seyyedmohsen Azizi, SoT
  • Sunil Mehendale, SoT
  • Jingfeng Jiang, BRC/Biomed Eng
  • Tarun Dam, Chemistry
  • Amy Schrank, ESC/SFRES
  • Zhen “Leo” Liu, CEE
  • Don Lafreniere, GLRC/SS
  • Steve Elmer, KIP
  • Amber Roth, ESC/SFRES
  • Sigrid Resh, ESC/SFRES

Huckins promoted; Marcarelli promoted with tenure

Board Promotes Faculty Members

Tech Today

At its regular meeting on Friday, the Board of Control promoted 11 associate professors with tenure to professor with tenure. They are Casey Huckins, (Bio Sci); Adrienne Minerick, (ChE); Shiyue Fang, (Chem); Brian Barkdoll, (CEE); Soner Onder and Zhenlin Wang, (CS); M. Ann Brady,(HU); Peter Moran, (MSE); Will Cantrell, (Physics); John Vucetich, (SFRES); and John Irwin, (SoT).

The Board also promoted 18 assistant professors to associate professor with tenure and one associate professor without tenure to associate professor with tenure. They are Amy Marcarelli,(Bio Sci); Caryn Heldt, (ChE); Ashutosh Tiwari, (Chem); Shane Mueller, (CLS); Scott Kuhl, (CS); Zhuo Feng, (ECE); Thomas Oommen, (GMES); Sue Collins, (HU); Ossama Abdelkhalik, Chang Kyoung Choi and Mohammad Rastgaar Aagaah, (MEEM); Andre Laplume, Junhong Min and Manish Srivastava, (SBE); Joseph Bump, (SFRES); Jinshan Tang, (SoT); Adam Wellstead and Richelle Winkler, (SS); and Joel Neves, (VPA).

 

Biology alum guest speaker for commencement

Spring Commencement Ceremony This Saturday

Tech Today. Michigan Tech’s spring commencement ceremony will be this Saturday, May 2, at 10:30 a.m. in the John MacInnes Student Ice Arena. This year, nearly 1,100 students will be awarded degrees, including almost 300 graduate students.


The guest speaker will be Dr. Susan E. Skochelak, Group Vice President for Medical Education at the American Medical Association (AMA) and director of the AMA’s Center for Transforming Medical Education. She developed and leads the AMA’s Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative working to promote innovation that better aligns physician training with the changing needs of our health care system.

Skochelak received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in biological sciences from Tech and received her MD degree from the University of Michigan. She obtained a Master’s of Public Health at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she trained as a resident physician in family medicine and preventive medicine. She completed a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars fellowship while at Chapel Hill.

The student speaker will be Kyle Yarusso; the Lake Elmo, MN, native will be completing his BS in Applied Ecology and Environmental Science. After graduation, he will serve as a Centennial Volunteer Ambassador with the Student Conservation Association, a non-profit that inspires lifelong stewardship of the environment. Down the road, Yarusso plans to attend graduate school, studying the human dimensions of environmentalism and conservation.

Doors to the arena open at 8:30 a.m., and students are expected to be present and prepared at 9:45 a.m. A seating chart of the graduates and additional information is available on Michigan Tech’s commencement website. Prior to the ceremony, the official ROTC commissioning ceremony will take place; a public commissioning will also occur during commencement.

2015 SURF Awards recipients for Biology and BMB students

The following students in Biological Sciences and Biochemistry and Molecular are recipients of Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Recipients (SURF) Awards for 2015:

Student Name Student’s Major Advisor/Department Project Title
Peter Nouhan Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Thomas Werner / Biological Sciences Uncovering the Enhancers of the Pigmentation Gene Yellow
Ryan Van Goethem Biological Sciences Amy Marcarelli / Biological Sciences Impact of Stamp Sands on Aquatic Macrophyte Communities, Myriophyllum spicatum, and Myriophyllum spicatum x sibiricum Hybrids in the Portage Waterway
Virginia Van Vianen (HI) Biological Sciences Erika Hersch-Green / Biological Sciences The Effects of Increased Anthropogenic Nitrogen on Plant Characteristics and Pollinators

Additional University recipients can be found at: http://www.mtu.edu/research/archives/awards/surf/

This is the description of the award from the University web site:

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF)

SURFs are open to all Tech undergraduates who have at least one semester remaining after the summer.

Annual awards of up to $4,000 are available. Program requests for applications are announced in TechToday beginning in November, with applications for these annual awards due January 30, 2015.

Fellowship recipients will conduct a research project under the guidance of a Michigan Tech faculty mentor, during the summer semester.

Fellowship recipients are required to:

  • Submit interim reports of their progress through the summer
  • Attend meetings of SURF award recipients
  • Present their research

Linville, Dalton awarded Student Leadership Awards; Bachman Departmental Scholar

Bachman photo small

Dalton photoStudent Leadership Awards Ceremony Held Friday

Outstanding students, staff and a special alumna were honored Friday at Michigan Tech’s 21st Annual Student Leadership Awards Ceremony. The event’s keynote speaker was also the winner of, perhaps, the most prestigious award presented. Brtta Jost, ’02, ’04 received the 2015 Outstanding Young Alumna Award. Jost is senior engineer in large structures design engineering for Caterpillar. In her remarks, Jost recalled the changes that have occurred since her days as a student, most of them in technology and social media.

“Back then, if a speaker looked out and saw the audience looking down, she would have thought they were bored or disinterested,” she said. “Now I know you’re posting my remarks on Twitter.”

Jost said the most important aspects of a Michigan Tech education have not changed since her time here a decade and half ago.

Perhaps the most prestigious undergraduate award, the Presidents Award for Leadership, was presented to Kim D’Augustino, a double major in Materials Science and Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. President Glenn Mroz cited D’Augustino’s numerous accomplishments including serving as vice president of the biomedical engineering society, mentoring students through the Wahtera Center and the ExSEL program and acting as event coordinator at the recent, highly-successful, campus Relay For Life.

Dallas Linville, was the recipient of the Vice President for Student Affairs and Advancement Award for Service, Nate Peterson received the Exceptional Leadership in Student Governance Award, the Exceptional Enthusiasm as Student Leader Award was presented to Luke Dalton and the Student Employee of the Year was awarded to Taylor Driscoll.

The Rising Star of the Year, presented to a first or second year student showing great potential for leadership, was awarded to Keagan Fortier. Britta Anderson was named Outstanding Future Alumnus or Alumna. The award is presented to a student already living the Alumni Association’s motto of “Celebrating Traditions, Creating Connections.”

Other awards handed out included:

Exceptional Program of the Year: Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program

Most Improved Student Organization: Mu Beta Psi

Exceptional Community Service Project: Society of Women Engineers, Homecoming Spirit Sprint

Claire M. Donovan Award: Susan Liebau, Director of the Waino Wahtera Center for Student Success

Student Organization of the Year: Broomball Committee

Student Organization Advisor of the Year: Jeremiah Bauman, Broomball Committee

The Provost’s Award for Scholarship was selected from the Departmental Scholars. This year’s recipient was Melissa Michaelson, Departmental Scholar from Social Sciences.

Award recipients who received their awards at previous ceremonies were also recognized. They include:
Percy Julian Award: Taylor Driscoll
Exceptional Graduate Student Leader: Abhilash Kantamneni
Exceptional Graduate Student Scholar: Xu Yang
Outstanding Graduate Mentor: Dr. Gregory Odegard
Greek Man of the Year: Jonathan Iafrate
Greek Woman of the Year: Erica Morley

This year’s Departmental Scholar in Biological Sciences was Evan Bachman