Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs Matt Auer. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

At �ֲ���ý, we often try to imagine the college 25 or 50 years out. What �ֲ���ý looks like in the future is at least partially revealed each time we hire a new faculty member. Today’s new recruit may teach at �ֲ���ý through 2050 or beyond.

Our ability to peer into the future is especially sharp this year because we recently hired nine tenure-track faculty members who will make an impact on the curriculum and on scholarship across all of our intellectual divisions — that is, in the humanities, natural sciences and mathematics, social sciences, and interdisciplinary programs.

Carolina González Valencia is a great example of a new faculty colleague whose impact will likely be felt early and consequentially. She’s an expert in digital media and drawing. Her interest in areas like representations of migration, identity, and “nationlessness,” and her ability to teach students to inscribe their own understanding of these issues on paper, canvas, and film, will add major new intellectual thrusts to the work of the Department of Art and Visual Culture.

She is also the first Mellon Diversity and Faculty Renewal Postdoctoral Fellow at �ֲ���ý. In her first year, she enjoys the advantages of a postdoctoral fellowship before converting, automatically, into a tenure-track assistant professorship in 2017–18.

Patrick Otim is the second of our two new postdoc fellows. A historian, his expertise is in 19th- and 20th-century East Africa, focusing on intellectual history in the pre-colonial era.

We talk about “a college for coming times” in our mission statement, but Carolina’s and Patrick’s backgrounds, experiences, and expertise illustrate that the coming times are already here.

Patrick is joined in the history department by Wes Chaney, who adds breadth and depth to our increasingly strong social, historical, and humanistic perspectives on China. Wes’ work is at the intersection of the environment, society, and the law in China during the Qing Empire (1644–1911) with a special interest in historical China’s border areas.

Network Infrastructure Project Manager Kevin Poland, left, and Desktop Operations Analyst Matthew Thomas install components of �ֲ���ý’ new High Performance Computing Cluster at 65 Campus Ave. New members of the physics faculty have taken the lead in bringing the system to �ֲ���ý. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

Wes has an instant community of fellow intellectual travelers since he comes on board at �ֲ���ý at the same time that Mia Liu and Nathan Faries begin their shared assistant professorship in Asian studies. Mia is a history, art, and visual culture expert, focusing on China. Nathan’s research considers religion, particularly Christianity, in Chinese literature in the contemporary context. Both Mia and Nathan teach Chinese language and culture courses.

The trend of faculty renewal is boldly evident in the natural sciences, too. Andrew Kennedy, an organic chemist whose work has neurobiological and medicinal applications, is fortifying connections between our department of chemistry and our program in neuroscience. Kennedy is already a major force nationally in understanding cognitive dimensions of a rare, genetic disorder called Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome.

Andrew Mountcastle, a new assistant professor in biology, is exploring the boundaries between physics and anatomy in living creatures, particularly insects. His students can expect to learn everything about the secrets of insect flight, from biomechanical, locomotive, and physiological perspectives.

The trend of faculty renewal is boldly evident in the natural sciences, too.

Two new assistant professors in the Department of Physics and Astronomy are helping to boost �ֲ���ý to a new level of computing capability. Jeff Oishi is a computational astrophysicist whose specialty is fluid dynamics and whose laboratory is the cosmos, as he studies solar magnetism. His new colleague, Aleksandar Diamond-Stanic, uses supercomputers to understand the structure and behavior of supermassive black holes.

With Oishi taking the lead, �ֲ���ý is now installing its first High Performance Computing system — a scalable computer cluster that, for example, will allow the astrophysicists to crunch data-rich imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope. This increase in the size and sophistication of the college’s supercomputing resources will continue in dramatic fashion as the college makes hires in the new Digital and Computational Studies program this year, and next.

Professor of Chemistry Paula Schlax helps AsiaLuna Patlis ’19 of Baltimore prepare for an exam in Schlax’s office in Dana Chemistry Hall. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

When Professor of Chemistry Paula Schlax first got into teaching, she brought with her a few assumptions about students, the nature of teaching, and the professor-student relationship.

And like any good scientist, Schlax was smart enough to realize that her hypothesis wasn’t quite right and needed revision. The result, she says, made her a better teacher and mentor to her students.

Her care for students has a goal: “to help them get to where they need to go.”

“My teaching really improved when I realized that not all students thought the way I did,” says Schlax, who came to �ֲ���ý in 1998. “I also thought that I could leave teaching and home separate, that students were students — they were just part of the job. It really can’t be that way.”

Over the years, Schlax has found that she “really cares about these students,” and that her care for students has a goal: “to help them get to where they need to go and where they want to go. If I don’t do that, I’m not sure I’m doing a good job.”

Schlax is doing more than a good job as evidenced by her winning the 2016 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award, the college’s signature honor for great teaching, was established in 1985 by a gift from Robert Kroepsch ’33. Nominated by students and alumni, recipients are selected by a committee of previous winners.

A biological chemist, Schlax has studied the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, its genes, and the “switches” that control them — research that recently earned her a three-year, $345,750 grant from the National Institutes of Health that will also support research opportunities for �ֲ���ý students. It’s during those hours in the lab, Schlax says, that students undertake “real science.”

“�ֲ���ý is particularly well-poised — with our required thesis and our open-ended laboratories — for us to basically teach students to do research,” Schlax says.

“Students can collaborate with us on our research, and honestly everyone in our chemistry department feels that is some of the most important teaching that we do.”

Schlax doesn’t consider herself a standout teacher. She would rather share the spotlight with her chemistry department colleagues, who Schlax describes as an extremely congenial group of professional supporters, mentors, and teachers.

“We have such amazing teachers here in this department,” Schlax says, adding that she’s “learned so much” working with her chemistry colleagues Glen Lawson, Tom Wenzel, Matt Côté. and Jen Koviach-Côté.

In fact, when Schlax was told that she won the Kroepsch Award, she didn’t believe it.

Paula Schlax is the 2016 winner of the Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“It was a complete shock,” she says of the meeting in which Matt Auer, the college’s vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty, told her she was this year’s winner.

“I actually thought that the dean was joking, I really did. … We have amazing teachers in the department and I just didn’t believe him. I really was completely taken aback.”

As surprised as Schlax may have been, her students say she deserves every accolade.

“I have come to know and respect her both as a fabulous professor and a dedicated mentor who truly cares about her students,” says Anna Turner ’18 of Brunswick, Maine, who has taken three classes with Schlax so far.

“From meeting outside of normal office hours, to inviting the entire Short Term class to her house to see her beehives, to offering guidance and empathy to students dealing with nonacademic issues, Paula goes above and beyond to foster growth in her students.”

Schlax hails from a family of educators. Her mother taught special education, her aunt was an art teacher, and her younger brother is, in her words, a “phenomenal” and “superb” high school chemistry teacher. Her brother, in fact, was her first student — even if it was just pretend.

“We used to play in the woods and pretend we were scientists when we were kids, and we played school a lot, too, of course. And since I was older, I got to be the teacher.”

And now, as an adult, Schlax is both a “for real” scientist and a teacher — a dual role that fits perfectly with her passion for creating knowledge and shaping young minds.

“I love science, I love doing research, but ultimately there are very, very few scientists that make such an impact in the world that it’s going to be their lasting legacy,” she says. “As a teacher, you really can influence people, help them find what they’re good at, what they’re not good at, what they like and what they don’t like, and you can make a real difference in a lot of students’ lives.

“For me, that’s really important.”

Destany Franklin ’14, left, and Caleb Glassman ’14, right, conduct research in a lab run by Nancy Kleckner, associate professor of neuroscience, on July 30, 2013. Photograph by Marc Glass ’88/�ֲ���ý College.

Two rising seniors share insights into life in a summer research lab as they study the neurobiology of snail brains.

Names: Destany Franklin ’14 and Caleb Glassman ’14

Hometowns: Franklin is from Seattle, Wash; Glassman from Radnor, Pa.

Majors: Franklin majors in neuroscience; Glassman in neuroscience and biochemistry.

Adviser: Nancy Kleckner, associate professor of biology, who studies the nervous systems of ponds snails like Helisoma trivolvis.

Research Funding: IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence, a program of the National Institutes of Health. �ֲ���ý awards INBRE grants to faculty and students conducting research in cell and molecular biology, biochemistry and neuroscience.

1. Describe the research you’re doing this summer.

Glassman: We study pond snail feeding behavior by recording the cells in the snail’s ganglion, or brain, and also by looking for signaling molecules through staining processes.

Franklin: That staining process is called immunocytochemistry, which involves taking the brain and adding a hormone or an antibody. We look under a microscope with special fluorescent lighting that shows whether or not neurons and cells are being activated, or fluorescing, due to that antibody.

2. The snails are pretty tiny. You must need very small instruments to study their brains.

Franklin: We spent a week or two just trying to steady our hands.

Glassman: One skill that you’ll learn in this lab is a lot of fine motor control.

Franklin: We use pins to stretch out the tissue of the snail’s central nervous system in order to get a tight picture of what we’re doing. It’s really important for Caleb to pin everything out tightly because he needs to actually stick a really small glass electrode into cells within the brain. The pins themselves are like microscopic nails.

Glassman: The tip of the pin is not that much smaller than the thing you’re trying to pin.

3. How does this summer research connect to your studies during the year?

Franklin: We’re both doing our senior theses with Nancy, continuing the work that we’re doing here with these snails.

Glassman: Here in the lab I do electrophysiology, so I’m actually recording from neurons. It’s reinforcing to see the effects of what I learn about in class. To actually see the voltage change over the time scale is a lot different than just hearing about it. Textbooks sometimes oversimplify ideas, but in lab nothing is simplified.

4. Do you have different work styles? How do you work together in the lab?

A focused Franklin prepares for the day’s work. Photograph by Marc Glass ’88/�ֲ���ý College.

Franklin: Caleb uses special equipment, so he gets his own little room. I don’t necessarily need to be in there. It’s a big lab, so we’re pretty lucky. When he does come out here, I give up some of my materials for him to use — I kind of take ownership until I have to share.

Glassman: I really like lab work because it allows for a lot of flexibility. I wake up very early and get into lab at seven so I can get my work done. But my work is a lot of hands-on stuff. It can be many hours of work before I actually start generating data, which can sometimes be frustrating, especially when preps don’t work out. I like having that control over my work, though.

5. What are the best and most challenging things about working with your adviser, Nancy?

Franklin: She welcomes all types of questions, even if it’s the simplest or craziest question in the world. She also admits to not knowing an answer and will help you research what the answer is. That’s really humbling.

Glassman: I think the best part of working in this lab is learning to deal with failure and knowing Nancy will support me. During the semester, there’s no time to fail. You get data; you write about that data. During the summer there is an opportunity to go out on a limb and try stuff. A lot of it is not going to work, but you can learn a lot by troubleshooting and trying to figure out what the problem is.

6. What’s your favorite thing to do on or off campus during the summer that you couldn’t necessarily do during the school year?

Franklin: I’ve been asking, ‘When do they come? When do they come?’ — the hot air balloons at the Great Falls Balloon Festival. I also like going to the local fairs. You don’t really get that a lot in the city where I’m from.

Glassman: During the year I’m a rower and find it hard to get off campus, but I’ve been going to a gym in Lewiston and meeting a lot of local people. I really enjoy interacting with the adults who live here.

In a fourth-floor lab in Carnegie Science Hall, biologist Larissa Williams has student researchers working on big projects involving tiny zebrafish.

In this audio slide show, featuring photographs by Marc Glass ’88, Williams outlines a project now being executed by biochemistry majors James Meyo ’14 of Nairobi, Kenya, and Jenny Chen ’16 of Englewood, Colo.

Under Williams’ guidance, Meyo and Chen are believed to be the first U.S. undergraduates to employ a certain research technique in an innovative way.

The technique, chromatin immunoprecipitation, or ChIP, helps researchers examine how proteins bind to certain areas of DNA strands. The nature of this protein binding determines how genes get turned on and off.

“The novelty of James and Jenny’s work is that they’re conducting this protocol in whole zebrafish embryos,” Williams says. “This is not trivial. In fact, they’re on the cusp of cutting-edge research.”

Williams uses a car analogy to explain protein binding. “The protein is the key to the car, and the DNA is the ignition.” When the protein binds to the DNA, it’s like the key going into the ignition and turning. “The car moves — the gene is turned on.”

Williams and her students will use ChIP to investigate gene expression — what a gene actually does — during the embryonic development of zebrafish.

Besides being a familiar inhabitant of the family aquarium, zebrafish make a great research model, says Williams. For one, there’s the convenience factor. Zebrafish are easy to raise in the lab, and their embryos grow outside their bodies.

Plus, she adds, “humans share 77 percent of our genes with zebrafish, so they are an excellent biomedical model.” The fish also do double duty as a model for environmental research. “The knowledge we learn in the lab, such as the effects of environmental toxins, can be transferred to what fish are experiencing in the wild.”

Chen and Meyo, whose work is being funded through the INBRE Fellowships program, are working in the Williams lab alongside biology majors Dan Jordan ’14 of Washington, D.C., and Allison Tsomides ’14 of Troy, Maine. The latter pair are looking at the production of blood in zebrafish, again from a genetic perspective.

As of early July, the four students in the Williams lab were doing the tedious but crucial work to set up their projects. Yep, it can be boring, says Williams.

“Start over.”

“There’s trial and error just getting projects off the ground,” she says. “But one of the most important things about summer research is teaching students that the process of scientific inquiry will include failure.”

As if on cue, a student approaches Williams reporting something awry with the pH of a solution she’s preparing.

“Start over,” Williams advises. “You’re already over volume, which means your molarity is off.”

Failure, Williams continues, “occurs even in the smallest of contexts.”

But it won’t be long before the students begin generating novel data for their projects. Then, later in the year, they’ll report results in �ֲ���ý research papers or senior theses. Eventually, that thesis or paper could get published in an academic, peer-reviewed journal.

“And they will be listed as co-authors of that paper because they will have had complete ownership of the creation of this new knowledge,” Williams says.

For Jenny Bergeron ’14, summer is passing at a snail’s pace — in a good way.

Along with Colin O’Leary ’13 and Alex Hulse ’14, Bergeron is studying snails and their neuropeptides: tiny molecules that help neurons talk to each other.

This spring, Bergeron was accepted to the Tufts Medical School Early Assurance Program, which guarantees admission to outstanding scholars two years ahead of matriculation. She plans to study abroad in Denmark this fall.

Student researcher Jenny Bergeron ’14 has been accepted to the Tufts Medical School Early Assurance Program. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College

Name: Jenny Bergeron ’14

Hometown: Lewiston, Maine

Major: Biochemistry

Research adviser: Nancy Kleckner, associate professor of biology, who studies the neurological systems of ponds snails like Helisoma trivolis

Research funding: IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence, a program of the National Institute of Health. INBRE grants are awarded by the college to faculty and students conducting research in cell and molecular biology, biochemistry and neuroscience.

1. Say you’re sharing an elevator with a famous hip hop artist who’s curious about your research. How would you describe your work?

Our research is looking at neuropeptides in snail brains in relation to feeding behaviors. We can use this information to discover how neuropeptides work in the human brain — but the snail brain’s a lot easier to work on. It’s smaller and there are fewer things going on. It’s less complex.

2. What made you decide to study snails?

It is Nancy’s project, and she asked me to join. But I think she picked Helisoma because — well, it’s a pretty snail to begin with! — but there’s not a lot of data out there on it. I think that makes the research a lot more interesting than just redoing other people’s work.

3. What do you enjoy most about the research?

My favorite part of the research so far is that we got to do six weeks of it at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory. That is a really cool environment. We had a lot of scientists our age around, and we had morning seminars and took a research presentation class. It was really exciting being in that environment, and to talk about your research and other people’s research was very collaborative.

Bergeron concentrates in the lab while her adviser, Nancy Kleckner, works in the background. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College

4. What’s the best part of working with your adviser, Nancy Kleckner? The most challenging?

The best part is that she’s from �ֲ���ý. Many people at MDIBL don’t work with a professor from their college, so they drop off their research and never see it again. But since Nancy’s from �ֲ���ý and she was a visiting scientist up there, she’ll still be working on it and I’ll be able to see the project transform over the next two years.

Plus, she’s really nice.

The most challenging part is not really her, but the fact that I haven’t taken neuroscience. So working with neuropeptides is definitely challenging, trying to figure out how the neuroscience works.

5. How does this summer research connect to your course work?

I’m a biochemist, and the research I’m doing with Nancy involves a lot of techniques that we use in cellular and molecular biology. I hear that a lot of the same techniques will come up in my future classes, too. So the research this summer is the same techniques, just different organisms.

6. Best part of being on campus in the summer?

When you see your professor walking around in shorts or just finished playing tennis, it’s kind of fun. And everyone’s a lot more relaxed in the summer.

Baker succeeds Jill N. Reich, who has served as vice president and dean since 2000. Last fall, Reich announced her plan to step down from the post on June 30 and, following a sabbatical, return as professor of psychology.

In announcing Baker’s appointment, President Hansen noted that “Pam Baker is both an outstanding teacher and researcher in her field who regularly involves her students in the creation of new knowledge. I have appointed Pam to this key leadership position with great pleasure and am excited about what I know will be her continuing contributions to �ֲ���ý in this role.”

“A deep understanding of what makes �ֲ���ý a national and international leader….”

Baker earned a bachelor of science degree in biology, cum laude, from �ֲ���ý in 1969. She received a master’s degree and doctorate from the State University of New York at Buffalo, joining the �ֲ���ý biology faculty in 1989 and being promoted to associate professor in 1996. A distinguished researcher and teacher, she was named the inaugural Papaioanou Professor of Biological Sciences in 2005.

Hansen added that Baker “has a deep understanding of what makes �ֲ���ý a national and international leader in liberal arts and sciences education. She was nominated for this position by her peers and comes highly recommended by them as well as by Dean Reich — herself a model for outstanding performance in the position.”

Baker’s nomination was forwarded to President Hansen by a 10-member search committee of faculty and staff chaired by Sowell Professor of Economics James W. Hughes and Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Holly A. Ewing.

The vice president and dean of the faculty serves as an advocate for a strong faculty as the foundation of an outstanding College. The office of the VPAA recruits, develops and evaluates faculty members; fosters the development of academic programs; and cultivates excellence in the academic and intellectual life of the �ֲ���ý community.

A member of the College’s senior staff, the VPAA is involved in long-term policy making and strategic planning and works closely with the Office of College Advancement to secure funding for the faculty and academic programs, including student-faculty research. The VPAA oversees a range of programs integral to the academic mission at �ֲ���ý, including the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, the Department of Athletics and the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art.

At �ֲ���ý, Baker’s teaching and research has focused on cell and molecular biology and immunology. She has developed a laboratory model for periodontal disease that she has used to demonstrate the roles of genetics and the immune system in bone loss in the jaw. Widely recognized in the field of immunology, her research has earned major grant support from the National Institutes of Health.

“We are constantly learning and revising what we know.”

Baker has involved many student research collaborators in her work, noting that “having a research project that I can involve students in is some of the best kind of learning we can give.” Of her teaching and research mission, she says that “we are constantly learning and revising what we know. It is our responsibility to get the students to think about the implications of what we know and what we’re still learning.”

In the area of academic administration, she was instrumental in establishing �ֲ���ý’ interdisciplinary Program in Biological Chemistry and served as chair of the faculty’s Division of the Natural Sciences before becoming associate dean of the faculty, overseeing faculty research and scholarship, in 2002.

Baker lives in South Paris, Maine, with her husband, David Baker, a 1970 �ֲ���ý graduate who is acting director of academic operations for finance at �ֲ���ý and a clinical dentist. In 2005, the Bakers together traveled to India on Fulbright sabbaticals to study public health dentistry at Maulana Azad Dental College in New Delhi.

The March issue of the journal Chirality publishes original research co-authored by �ֲ���ý students, now alums, Katelyn Provencher ’08, Madeline Weber ’08 and Lauren Randall ’04, along with Dana Professor of Chemistry Tom Wenzel and former lecturer Catherine Dignam. Their paper continues the significant work by Wenzel and his undergraduates in the area of . This chemistry field examines molecules that are mirror images (“enantiomers”) of each other but which, despite their similarity, can have very different reactive effects. Specifically, Wenzel seeks ways to figure out which enantiomer might be present, and in what amounts, in various compounds. The team’s paper is titled, “Carboxymethylated Cyclodextrins and their Complexes with Pr(III) and Yb(III) as Watersoluble Chiral NMR Solvating Agents for Cationic Compounds.”

A �ֲ���ý College junior from Maine and a senior from New York state presented biochemistry research to a U.S. representative from Maine this month as part of “Posters on the Hill,” an annual event designed to remind Congress of the importance of undergraduate research.

Both majoring in biological chemistry, Joshua Linscott of Portland and Nicholas Swerdlow of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., were among 78 undergraduates from across the nation to take part in the May 4-5 event sponsored by the , a national organization that supports student-faculty collaborative research and scholarship.

The �ֲ���ý pair presented genetic research involving the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi. Working with Paula Schlax, associate professor of chemistry at �ֲ���ý, they studied messenger RNA that regulates the expression of a protein connected with the microbe’s transmission from ticks to mammals.

“The genome of this bacteria is quite unusual,” says Schlax, “and understanding basic principles of protein synthesis will be essential in understanding its life cycle and its ability to be an effective pathogen.”

The gatherings give undergraduate students and their professors a forum to explain their research to members of Congress and their staffs, and to discuss the importance of such research and federal financial support for it.

Linscott and Swerdlow met Maine Rep. Michael Michaud, who represents Maine’s 2nd District, which includes Lewiston. “The Congressman has an excellent relationship with �ֲ���ý and was very receptive to our visit,” Swerdlow says. “He asked about our research and looked at our poster, but the meeting was focused on undergraduate research in general.

The pair emphasized that grants from the Maine IDeA [sic] Network of Biomedical Research Excellence, funded by the National Institutes of Health, have supported their research at �ֲ���ý, Linscott says. “I think my voice represented the thoughts and needs of many undergrads. Undergraduate research is hugely important in preparing students to enter grad school or the job market.”

Described by Schlax as a hard-working, fastidious student, Swerdlow wants to pursue a career combining research and medical practice. He has spent the last two summers performing clinical research on obesity.

Linscott has worked at IDEXX, the Westbrook-based veterinary diagnostics manufacturer, and hopes to do pharmaceuticals research after �ֲ���ý. Schlax described him as “organized, careful and motivated.”

For all of the students, Posters on the Hill included opportunities to network, see some sights in the nation’s capital and share their research.

“It was amazing to be surrounded by reminders of the history of our country,” Linscott says. “For all of us, I think, it was very freeing to be able to explain our research in depth to other students who could really understand what we were doing.”

Lisa Genova, a member of the �ֲ���ý College class of 1992 whose self-published novel about a professor succumbing to early-onset Alzheimer’s disease became a best-seller earlier this year, offers a talk and reading at �ֲ���ý at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 20, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

Sponsored by the �ֲ���ý psychology department, the event is open to the public at no cost.

Genova’s debut novel made news for both its literary quality and its unusual route to public attention. Unable to attract an agent, published the book herself using an online service. Then word got around, enthusiasm snowballed and Genova signed a contract with Simon and Schuster — under whose imprint the book debuted at No. 5 on The New York Times bestseller list in January.

Still Alice is the story of 50-year-old Alice Howland, who is a celebrated Harvard professor, happily married and at the peak of her career, when she notices the first signs of a failing memory. As the disease progresses, she struggles to maintain her lifestyle and to live in the moment even as her sense of self is disappearing.

“As Alice laments, ‘I miss myself,'” wrote USA Today reviewer Craig Wilson. “A poignant portrait of Alzheimer’s, Still Alice is not a book you will forget.”

Genova graduated from �ֲ���ý summa cum laude with a self-designed major in biopsychology and has a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard. She has researched the molecular origins of depression, Parkinson’s disease, drug addiction and memory loss following stroke.

She is also an actress working in Boston theaters and independent films. She is working on her next novel for Simon and Schuster, Left Neglected.

Funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the awards give students the chance to attend regional, national and international scholarly meetings in the natural sciences, mathematics, health, psychology, or science and mathematics education.

At these gatherings, �ֲ���ý students present and defend their research while meeting and learning from top scholars in their fields.

For a budding scholar, developing an articulate public voice is nothing short of a requirement. If you can’t present your research, whether to fellow scholars or your roommate, “then your work is simply less valuable,” says Professor of Biology Will Ambrose.

Winners of 2008-09 Hughes Student Travel Grants

Amod Basnet ’11 and Justin HoShue ’09 attended the October 2008 in Rochester, N.Y., to present their poster on “Low Frequency Fluctuation in the Multi-mode Regime of Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser with Optical Feedback.” Faculty mentor: Professor of Physics Hong Lin.

Thomas Broge ’09 will attend, April 18-22, 2009, the American Physiological Society’s in New Orleans, La., to present his research poster entitled “Moderate Hyperoxia Inhibits Glomus Cell Proliferation in the Carotid Body of Neonatal Rats.” Faculty adviser: Assistant Professor of Biology Ryan Bavis.

Cora Chisholm ’10 and Ngoc Pham ’10 will attend, July 12-15, 2009, the in Breckenridge, Colo., to present the poster entitled “Calix[4]resorcinarenes and Cationic Cyclodextrins as Water-Soluble Enantioselective NMR Shift Reagents.” Faculty adviser: Charles A. Dana Professor of Chemistry Thomas Wenzel.

Miranda Gallo ’09 attended the February 2009 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to present her poster on “Characterization of a Novel GluR5/6/7-immunoreactive Cell Group in the Buccal Ganglia of the Pond Snail, Helisoma trivolvis.” Faculty adviser: Associate Professor of Biology Nancy Kleckner.

Owen Harris ’08 attended the November 2008 in Washington, D.C., to present his senior research in a poster entitled “The CB1 Antagonist Rimonabant is Mono-and Adjunctively Therapeutic in an Animal Model of Parkinson’s Disease without Producing or Enhancing Dyskinesia.” Faculty adviser: Professor of Psychology John Kelsey.

Benjamin Levin ’09 attended the March 2009 in Corpus Christi, Texas, to present his research poster, “Geographic Variation in Growth of Greenland Smoothcockle.” Faculty adviser: Professor of Biology William Ambrose.

Gillian Leibach ’09 will attend, April 22-25, 2009, the in Montreal, Canada, to present her senior thesis poster, “Body Esteem and Disordered Eating Among Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus: Pump versus Injection Users.” Faculty mentors: Psychology lecturer Susan Langdon and Professor of Psychology Kathryn Low.

Caitlin McMahon ’09 attended the March 2009 in Corpus Christi, Texas, to present her poster entitled “Long- and Short-Term Effects of Baitworm Digging on the Feeding Behavior of Ring-Billed Gulls on Mudflats in Maine.” Faculty adviser: Professor of Biology William Ambrose.

Kristen Meyers ’09 and Kristen Young ’09 will attend, April 18-22, 2009, the American Physiological Society’s to present her research in a poster entitled “Exercise Performance in Moderate Hypoxia in Rats with Impaired Carotid Bodies.” Faculty adviser: Assistant Professor of Biology Ryan Bavis.

Jeremy Muench ’10 attended the January 2009 in Washington, D.C., to present his poster, “Partitions-in-a Box.” Faculty adviser: Assistant Professor of Mathematics Pallavi Jayawant.

Dana Oster ’09 attended the March 2009 Geological Society of America’s in Portland, Maine, and the April 2009 at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, to present her research poster, “Mapping Short-Term Barrier Beach Processes to Model Transgressional Shore Lines in 2100 from Sea Level Rise.” Last fall, Oster won the $500 first prize at the University of Maine’s October 2008 . Faculty adviser: Professor of Geology Michael Retelle.

Elizabeth Rogers ’09 will attend, June 24-28, 2009, the 89th at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, to present her research on “Black-legged Ticks (Ixodes scapulan’s) Occurrence, Burdens of Small Mammals, and Infection Rates by Borrilia burgdorferi in Southwestern Maine.” Faculty adviser: Visiting Professor of Biology Ronald Barry.

Stuart Ryan ’09 attended the March 2009 in Corpus Christi, Texas, to present his poster, “Effect of the Polar Front on Growth Rates of the Hairy Cockle Clinocardium ciliatum.” Faculty adviser: Professor of Biology William Ambrose.

Gregory Sousa ’09 attended November 2008 in Washington, D.C., to present his senior thesis research poster, “Distribution and Impact of Neuropeptide F (NPF) within the Buccal Feeding Circuitry of the Pond Snail, Helisoma trivolvis.” Faculty adviser: Associate Professor of Biology Nancy Kleckner.

Madeline White ’09 attended the January 2009 at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., to give a presentation on her senior thesis research entitled “Construction of a Computational Stellar Model.” Faculty adviser: Professor of Physics Eric Wollman.

Kristen Young ’09 will attend, April 18-22, 2009. the American Physiological Society’s to give present her poster, “Chronic Hyperoxia Alters the Early and Late Phases of the Hypoxic Ventilatory Responses in Neonatal Rates.” Faculty adviser: Assistant Professor of Biology Ryan Bavis.

-H. Jay Burns, Office of Communications and Media Relations