I won a two year NOAA NERR graduate fellowship to develop a project working on Gull-billed tern foraging movements and diet at The Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Student Kymberly Gustus, Annayal Yikum and Yesenia De León, Biological Sciences

Biology majors Kymberly Gustus and Annayal Yikum, along with Wildlife major Yesenia De León, won the award for best poster in Neuroscience at the SACNAS (Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science) conference held on Sept. 30 to Oct. 3 in Anaheim, Calif.

The undergraduate student’s poster was entitled: The effects of histamine on escape behaviors and giant nerve fiber conduction velocity in the blackworm Lumbriculus variegatus. Their research was conducted under the mentorship of Dr. Bruce A. O’Gara. Annayal, Kymberly and Yesenia are interns in the Undergraduate Research and Mentoring (URM) Program in the Biological Sciences.

Student Du Cheng Biological Sciences

The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) has selected Du Cheng from Humboldt State University as a 2010 award recipient of the ASM Undergraduate Research Fellowship. This fellowship is aimed at highly competitive students who wish to pursue graduate careers (Ph.D. or MD/Ph.D.) in microbiology. Dr. Jianmin Zhong from HSU is Du Cheng’s mentor. The research title is: Study of Prevalence and Transmission Routes of Rickettsia species in Ixodes pacificus by Real-time PCR.

Faculty Erik Jules Biological Sciences

Erik Jules published a paper in the journal Ecology on the effects of wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park on aspen forests.

Kauffman, M. J., J.F. Brodie, E.S. Jules. 2010. Are wolves saving Yellowstone’s aspen? a landscape-level test of a behaviorally mediated trophic cascade. Ecology 91:2740-2753.