The Biology Graduate Research Symposium was founded in 2014 by Karen Abbott (then a new assistant professor) and Colin Cope (then a PhD student) as a way to showcase student research to prospective graduate students. It has been held annually since then and has grown to become an important annual celebration of gradute research and accomplishments and a fun way to stay connected with what’s happening across the department.

Below you can find a brief history of past symposiums with lists of speakers’ names and winners of the Best Talk, Best Lightning Talk, and Best Poster.

Talks:

Deepa Chitre–Cell migration of the apical expansion of the frontal bone.
Jae Ho Lee–Investigating function of the Drosophila hormone ecdysone during mid embryogenesis using Halloween gene mutants.
Alex Gurgis–Tiny Crustaceans, Ancient Brains: What ostracods tell us about the evolution of sensory integration structures.
Grace Bellino–The Effects of Urbanization on Mating Calls in the Fall Field Cricket (Gryllus pennsylvanicus)

Posters:

Jessica LaBella–A Change is Gonna Come: Mechanisms of Acclimation and Adaptation in Permafrost Peatland Microbes
Sachit Kshatriya and Sarah Bagby–TaRTLEt: Transcriptionally-active Riboswitch Tracer Leveraging Edge deTection.
Elizabeth Rush–A novel, causative FBN1 variant exhibits neonatal Marfan syndrome
Yifan Zhai–Crowding Before Construction: Mesenchymal Condensation as the First Stop in Frontal Bone Growth