2013 Biology Symposium
May 16th, 2013 in the Genome Sciences Building, UNC Chapel Hill
The annual Biology Department Research Symposium is an event that brings the entire department together for a day of learning, sharing, and discussion. This year, the Symposium features presentations from 2 faculty and 2 students, voted on by the department and equally representing both MCDB and EEOB. There will also be a poster session featuring the work of 3rd and 5th year students, including students from CEE (Ecology). In honor of our theme, ‘Learn Something New’ we are offering a variety of faculty and student-led workshops during the morning session.
Registration
Register here by 05/01 to choose your lunch option and secure your place in one of the workshops. To reduce catering costs, lunch will only be available for registered participants.
Schedule
Morning
| Time | GSB 1377 | other location | 6th Floor fordham |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:30-10:00am | Coffee (in GSB Lobby – sponsored by GPSF) | ||
| 10:00-10:30am | Workshop: Learn a bird song or two, if birds can do it so can you! Haven Wiley |
Workshop: This ain’t your Grandma’s scope. Jolien Tyler and Chris Higgins (Bloom and Goldstein Labs, Fordham 6th floor) |
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| 10:30-11:00am | Workshop: Lose the ligase for more versatile and reliable DNA cloning. Jeff Sekelsky |
Workshop (GSB 1378): Fossils: the key to the past David Pfennig & Pat Gensel |
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| 11:00-11:30am | Workshop: Slide design and the telling of the scientific story. Artur Romanchuk |
Workshop: This ain’t your Grandma’s scope. Jolien Tyler and Chris Higgins (Bloom and Goldstein Labs, Fordham 6th floor) |
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| 11:30-12:00pm | Workshop (GSB 2101): Fun with Mathematica Maria Servedio |
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Afternoon
| Time | GSB Lower Lobby | GSB 200: Lecture Hall |
|---|---|---|
| 12:00-1:30pm | Lunch | Slideshow and Science Trivia |
| 1:30-2:00pm | MCDB Student Presentation: Chris Higgins – Coupling of Force Production to Cell Shape Change in C. elegans Morphogenesis |
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| 2:00-2:30pm | EEOB Faculty Presentation: Christina Burch – The Genetics of Adaptation and Speciation in Bacteriophage |
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| 2:30-3:00pm | Poster Session I: Jessica Coyle, Fletcher Halliday, Jenny Heppert, Leslie Kennedy, David Kikuchi, Zhipeng Lu, Kyle Palmquist, Tracy Raines, Artur Romanchuk, Emily Schmidt |
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| 3:00-3:30pm | Poster Session II: Joel Adamson, Eric Earley, David Ernst, Kyle Grode, Jessica Kurth, Thiago Lima, Yuxiang Liu, Bianca Lopez, Kathryn Trogden, Dimensions of Biodiversity Distributed Graduate Seminar |
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| 3:30-4:00pm | EEOB Student Presentation: Courtney Cox – Evaluating conservation strategies for coral reef recovery |
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| 4:00-4:30pm | MCDB Faculty Presentation: Vicki Bautch – Blood Vessels and Centrosomes: Three is a Crowd |
Speakers
Dr. Vicki Bautch – Dr. Bautch has centered her research around how blood vessels are formed and patterned during development, using the mouse as a study system. Her recent publications involve topics such as sprouting angiogenesis, polarity establishment in angiogenesis, and Flt-1’s influence on blood vessel formation. Additionally, she will take over as Department Chair, starting this summer.
Dr. Christina Burch – Dr. Burch is an expert in the field of experimental evolution, using bacteriophage as a study system. Her primary research focus is the genetics of adaptation, but her interests include the evolution of phenotypes with particular relevance to viruses, such as virulence and host range. She has strengths in both computational and experimental work and has recent publications encompassing topics such as niche-width expansion and HIV sequence evolution.
Courtney Cox – Courtney Cox is a 4th year PhD student in John Bruno’s lab. Her research is focused on the effectiveness of a ban on herbivorous fish harvesting in Belize as a conservation strategy for restoring coral reef community structure. She is also interested in the genetic population structure of parrotfish across the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef and how this influences coral reef conservation and management.
Chris Higgins – Chris Higgins is a 4th year PhD student in Bob Goldstein’s lab and studies the cell biological processes that underlie morphogenesis. He uses C. elegans gastrulation as a model process to understand how cellular machines produce and transmit the forces that cause cells to change shape and embryos to develop organized structures.
Workshop Descriptions
Jolien Tyler and Chris Higgins
Take a field trip to the 6th floor of Fordham Hall to visit the Bloom and Goldstein Labs. There you will use state-of-the-art confocal and widefield microscopes to learn about the limitations and possibilities of modern day microscopy.
Dr. Haven Wiley
Check out some examples of songs from local birds and take a quiz to test your bird song recognition.
Dr. David Pfennig and Dr. Patricia Gensel
Fossils––the remains of prehistoric animals or plants––provide a unique window into the past. In this workshop, we’ll discuss how fossils form and what they can tell us about the history of life and the Earth. We’ll also explore North Carolina’s rich fossil heritage and describe how you can find fossils yourself.
Dr. Jeff Sekelsky
We will compare and contrast three ligase-independent cloning methods:
- Gateway – rapidly exchange of a fragment into a wide array of vectors; simultaneously join multiple fragments
- InFusion – clone fragments seamlessly into any vector; simultaneously join multiple fragments
- Recombineering – modify large (e.g., BAC) clones in vivo
Artur Romanchuk
Academia is mostly about explicit knowledge. Unfortunately design, is mostly not so explicit. The result, is if you try and couch design in terms that are normal for science then the whole thing looks very weak. This workshop is about design – figure design, slide design, talk design. It is about communication, its rhythm structure and balance. This workshop is not a list of “How to make a pretty slide” rules, but it deals with principles that can help.
Dr. Maria Servedio
We will go over the basics of how Mathematica works, how to use it for basic tasks, and end by writing a short program together. You will get the most out of the workshop if you come with Mathematica loaded onto your laptop (it’s available for free at software acquisitions), otherwise you can just “audit”.