Congratulations to Amy Marcarelli, professor in the Biological Sciences department, and other members for their recently published article “Seasonal trends of DOM character in soils and stream change with snowmelt timing.”.
Full list of authors: Karl M. Meingast, Evan S. Kane, Amy M. Marcarelli, Joseph W. Wagenbrenner, Vincent G. Beltrone
Congratulations to Laura Schaerer, a graduate student in Biological Sciences, for her Outstanding Scholarship Award recognizing her academic performance! Laura is working towards her PhD in Biological Sciences.
Exceptional graduate students may be nominated by their program or department for the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the year of their graduation. Nominees will have demonstrated academic or professional qualities that set them apart within their academic program. Nominations are made each fall and spring semester.
From Laura: Thank you to the Biology department for their nomination, this is a very happy surprise!
Heartiest congratulations to 12 instructors (that’s 17% of all instructors awarded) from the Biological Sciences Department who have been identified as some of the only 70 campus-wide instructors who received exceptional “Average of Seven dimensions” student evaluation scores during the Fall 2022 semester. Only 91 sections university-wide (out of more than 1,379 evaluated) were rated so highly by the students. Their scores were in the top 10% of similarly sized sections university-wide, with at least a 50% response rate and a minimum of five responses.
The following faculty, staff, and graduate students received the recognition.
Interim Provost Dr. Andrew Storer recently congratulated them for their outstanding accomplishments in teaching.
We are very proud of these achievements, and we thank them and you all for fulfilling the educational mission of our university!
The departmental student rating average for Fall 2022 was 4.47 out of 5. Since 2013, our faculty, staff, and students have been in this top 10% of teachers list 152 times.
The Society of Medical Laboratory Scientists participated in the all-nighter statue competition. Way to go SMLS!
“Be careful when you take a bite, you just might find a parasite!” – Worm Apple
Congratulations to Trista Vick-Majors and other members of the Subglacial Lakes Team for their recently published article in the ISME Communications Journal: “Biogeochemical and historical drivers of microbial community composition and structure in sediments from Mercer Subglacial Lake, West Antarctica“.
We are pleased to announce three finalists for the 2023 Michigan Tech Distinguished Teaching Award. Congratulations go out to:
Professor Amy Marcarelli is nominated for the Associate Professor/Professor category. This is Amy’s fourth nomination.
Teaching Assistant Professor Claire Danielson is nominated for the Assistant Professor/Teaching Professor/Professor of Practice category. This is Claire’s second nomination.
Assistant Professor Robert Larson, is nominated for the Assistant Professor/Teaching Professor/Professor of Practice category. This is Rob’s first nomination.
These three join prior Biological Sciences department Distinguished Teaching Award winners in the recent past: Dr. Thomas Werner (2013 and 2019), Ms. Karyn Fay (2016), and Ms. Brigitte Morin (2018). Dr. Thomas Werner also won the Michigan Distinguished Professor of the Year award in 2021.
The Distinguished Teaching Award recognizes outstanding contributions to Michigan Tech’s instructional mission.
To whittle the finalists to a single winner, The William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is seeking input on the finalists for its annual Distinguished Teaching Awards. Based on more than 40,000 student ratings of instruction responses, ten finalists have been identified for the 2023 awards. The selection committee solicits comments from students, staff, faculty, and alumni to be referenced during their deliberations.
Comments for the finalists are due by March 31 and can be submitted online.
The process for determining the Distinguished Teaching Award recipients from this list of finalists also involves the additional surveying of their spring 2023 classes. The selection committee makes the final determination of the award recipients. The 2023 Distinguished Teaching Awards will be formally announced in May.
For more information, contact the CTL at ctl@mtu.edu or 906-487-3000.
Melia Austin immerses herself in her learning. One example: is a trip to Costa Rica during the summer of 2022 with fellow Michigan Tech students interested in sustainability. Building on what they learned at Michigan Tech, they observed what Costa Rica has done to become more sustainable in terms of environment, ecology, water treatment, and more. Plus, Melia immersed herself in the Costa Rican community, where she practiced her Spanish and earned credits toward her minor in Spanish.
Melia said, “I wanted to use what I’ve learned in my Spanish classes to grow in my understanding of the world, and learn about sustainability inside and outside of the classroom.” Day trips around Costa Rica greatly enhanced her learning.
The day trips brought sustainability to life. A visit to a natural hot spring showed how Costa Ricans benefit from this sustainable form of energy. They also hiked through a sustainable forest where they saw a quetzal. This is a rare bird found in Costa Rica. Sustainable forests give species like the quetzal places to thrive. The forest was not only environmentally sustainable, but also socially, and economically sustainable. As a result, Costa Rica is able to identify and manage the impacts of businesses and people on the environment and adjust accordingly to be sustainable. She noted that the rainforest and its management met the criteria of the three pillars of sustainability that they learned about in their classes.
There were lots Melia enjoyed during her time in Costa Rica. Melia’s favorite thing was “attending a conference about sustainability with graduate students and professors from different universities.” She was able to diversify her learning about sustainability by connecting with others from different universities. This enhanced her experience as she immersed herself in new opportunities to learn about sustainability.
When asked what advice she would give to students considering studying abroad she said, “You are at a unique point in your life where you have the freedom and autonomy to travel and learn new things that might change how you see the world. It might even change your future plans.” In Costa Rica, she learned to be independent and travel independently. She is applying those learnings in a gap year in Senegal where she volunteers on a hospital ship. Immersing herself in Senegalese culture and the hospital environment, her goal is to gauge her interest in a career in medicine.
Students at Michigan Tech can study abroad in a similar, biology-centric program. Casey Huckins, PhD and Professor of Biological Sciences leads students on a trip to the Bahamas each spring break. Students learn about the biology and ecology of tropical island plant and animal communities in marine and terrestrial systems. The program covers the geological history, human history, and climate of these fragile tropical ecosystems. Students collect data and experience the nature, dynamics, and beauty of these island ecosystems. They’re surrounded by incredible biodiversity while gaining perspective from being in another country.
This post originally appeared in Michigan Technological University’s Social Sciences Newsblog. Itis authored by Nicholas Pate, a student in the College of Business.
Medical Technologist Peyton Gast graduated with a BS in Medical Lab Science from Michigan Tech. She works for Marshfield Clinic Health Systems in Transfusion Service. We caught up with Peyton recently.
Peyton: I work in the Transfusion Service department of the lab. This is a unique department because we are not only a testing service for patient samples, but we also provide the hospital with a variety of blood products – red blood cells, plasma, platelets, etc. When you donate blood, it comes to labs like ours, and we make sure the right units go to the right patients. Depending on the patient, finding compatible blood products can range from a very easy to a rather difficult process. This process is always a little easier when you have a large blood supply – which we do not have right now. That’s why it’s so important to get out there and donate!
Peyton: I knew that I wanted to work in the medical field, but I was wary of having a patient-facing career. When I came to MTU and discovered medical lab science, I loved that it was a behind-the-scenes role with a direct, significant impact on patient care. When I did my clinicals at the Marshfield Clinic, I learned that their Transfusion Service was the perfect department for me – it requires extreme attention to detail, and I get to do a lot of critical thinking and advanced manual techniques – which is the fun part! I also like that I get to take part in the stem cell processing program, and I can teach what I’ve learned to new MLS students every year.
Peyton: Michigan Tech provides relevant and hands-on experience which made me feel very prepared for my clinicals. I had the opportunity to work with samples regularly seen in the lab, as well as examples of more complex disease states – especially in microbiology and hematology! I apply the techniques I learned at MTU to my job every day, and I have more confidence in my career knowing that I have a well-rounded education.
Peyton: The best part of my education experience at MTU was the opportunity to work so closely with instructors. They were always eager to meet and discuss classroom topics so that we can all better understand the material – no matter the class size.
Peyton: I would tell any new students interested in lab science that a degree in MLS can take you in many directions. This career can be as specific or as broad as you want it to be, so take advantage of electives and use it as an opportunity to find what you’re most interested in. I would encourage students to push this career as far as it can go – whether it’s getting a specialty in your department, going into management, teaching, or being the best generalist out there – MTU will prepare you to do it!
Professor Amy Marcarelli and a multi-disciplinary team have received a two-year, $300,000 NSF grant. The grant from the National Science Foundation is to study the relationships between organic matter and micro-organisms in streams.
An ecosystems ecologist, Marcarelli is leading a team of Michigan Tech ecosystem scientists, microbiologists, environmental chemists, and data scientists. The researchers are conducting detailed laboratory experiments to gather data on how microbial communities work together to process complex mixtures of dissolved organic matter in streams. Steve Techtmann, associate professor of Biological Sciences and an environmental microbiologist, is doing all the microbial work on the project in his lab at Michigan Tech.
Dissolved organic matter comprises many different kinds of molecules that come from terrestrial and aquatic plants and microbes. The researchers expect different microbes that live in streams to be specialized to break down these different molecules.
“We expect the relationships to be extremely complicated,” Marcarelli says.
They are looking at rates of respiration, carbon breakdown, and energy release. They hope to discover how the characteristics of dissolved organic matter and stream microbes can explain rates of carbon dioxide emission from streams.
The researchers will use the data to develop machine-learning models. “The relationships between the organic matter and micro-organisms might not be evident in simpler analysis methods,” Marcarelli explains.
The current work is the start of a much larger project. “We hope to build on the results of this project with a much bigger proposal for a large field project,” she says.
And why is this work important? “Although we, as a field, have studied carbon dioxide production and emission across many different streams, we can only predict a small amount of the variation we see based on environmental characteristics like temperature,” Marcarelli explains. “We think there is an important role of both microbes and organic matter structure that contributes to this variability, and understanding that is important for predicting these emissions in the future and response to global changes like climate and land use change.”
Marcarelli is the director of the Ecosystem Science Center at Michigan Tech.
This blog post initially appeared in the Fall 2022 Biological Sciences Newsletter. Read this article and others like it today.
Professor Casey Huckins has been studying the ecology of coaster brook trout for nearly 20 years. He started out investigating these migratory fish’s population ecology and life history. His research now focuses on analyzing the movement patterns of coaster brook trout due to human impact on the watershed. He is also focusing on ways to restore them and the habitat they need to spawn. Recently, with funding from the Michigan Departments of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) and the Department of Natural Resources, his lab has been actively restoring its critical habitat. “Human actions have turned these iconic heritage species of Lake Superior into a conservation concern by overharvesting them and disturbing their habitat,” Huckins explains.
His team is actively studying the two coaster brook trout populations still known to exist along the south-central shore of Lake Superior.
These migratory coaster brook trout live in Lake Superior. However, they return to their rivers of origin to breed in the same spots where they were spawned. Due to disturbances in the watersheds, like logging and road use, the spawning habitat of these creatures has been buried. This has altered the critical dynamic of erosion and sedimentation, leading to a buildup of fine sand. The sand present here is responsible for covering larger sediment particles like cobbles and pebbles. Cobbles are small rocks that have been rounded by water flow. These pebbles serve as the spawning habitat and also as the home for the brook trout’s food and aquatic insects.
With his recent state funding, Huckins says his goal is to restore the critical spawning habitat. He will do this by removing excess sand and studying the impacts on the habitat and the brook trout population. His team has installed in-stream sand collectors that passively collect sand as it flows over them. The researchers then routinely operate pumps to move the sand out of the floodplain.
Huckins’ team is now investigating whether the community of stream insects that are key food items for the brook trout also increases in abundance, diversity, and community structure. He hopes to see a site with natural, free-flowing cobble-based cold-water habitat. Huckins found this at the site when he started studying it with his graduate students nearly two decades ago.
His next goal is to acquire additional funding to automate the sand collectors to operate independently. Huckins’ goal is to eliminate the need for researchers to manually pump sand at the site, saving them time and fuel expenses. The team is currently expanding their efforts to implement this system in various streams and rivers. Their equipment is being utilized to rehabilitate other waterways that have suffered from erosion due to flooding, land use, or other factors that cause sand to flow downstream. As our climate changes, we expect to see more extreme events that will have outcomes we need to address to restore and maintain these critical aquatic ecosystems.
This blog post initially appeared in the Fall 2022 Biological Sciences Newsletter. Read this article and others like it today.