UCF Biology News

The most recent student highlights are listed below. If you are a UCF Biology and you would like to notify the department about your good news, email the webmaster at cosweb@mail.ucf.edu

Graduate, April, 2008: Steve Shippee (Conservation Biology Ph.D. with Graham Worthy) received best Ph.D. Student Poster presentation at the recent SEAMAMMS conference in Charleston SC. This was for his research entitled "High -flyers vs Low-riders: a performance analysis of radio tag attachments on bottlenose dolphins" which was coauthored by Eric Zolman, Wendy Noke Durden, Forrest Townsend, and Greg Bossart.

Undergraduate, April, 2008: Nancy Gillis (undergraduate with Eric Hoffman) received Outstanding Student Poster presentation at the recent 2008 Ocean Sciences conference in Orlando, FL. This was for her research entitled "Genetic Diversity and Population Admixture Contribute to Establishment of Mytella charruana, an Invasive Mussel" which was coauthored by Linda Walters and Eric Hoffman.

Graduate, March, 2008: James Angelo (M.S. student in the GAMES Lab) received the best student poster award at the Southern Forestry and Natural Resource Management GIS Conference (SOFOR GIS 2008) in Kissimmee, FL for his study entitled: Using LiDAR and Field Data to Analyze Canopy Structure in a Sand Pine Forest. Co-authors were John F. Weishampel, Hilary M. Swain, and Edwin M. Everham III.

Graduate, January, 2008: Allyson Fenwick (Conservation Biology Ph.D. student) was awarded a Collection Study Grant ($400) from the American Museum of Natural History. Allyson will use the award to travel to the national museum and collect morphological data on pitvipers for her dissertation research.

Graduate, December, 2007: Kim Medley (Conservation Biology Ph.D. student) published a paper (with co-author J.E. Havel) in Wetlands entitled "Hydrology and local environmental factors influencing zooplankton communities in floodplain ponds". The paper presented a portion of the work she completed for her M.S. degree at Missouri State University.

Graduate, November, 2007: Simona Ceriani (Conservation Biology Ph.D. student) received the Boyd Lyon Memorial Travel Award from the Biology Graduate Student Association. Simona will use the funds to attend the 28th International Sea Turtle Symposium in Baja, California in January, 2008. She will be presenting her work with co-authors Jeanette Wyneken and Thane Wibbels entitled "Sex-specific morphology of neonate sea turtles: methods for identifying sex in formalin-preserved and fresh dead hatchlings and post-hatchlings."

Graduate, May, 2007: Rachel Morgan (M.S. student in the von Kalm lab) has been selected as a Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Defense Scholarship for Service Program Scholar by the United States Army. As a SMART Scholar she will receive full tuition support and an annual stipend of $28,000.

Undergraduate, March, 2006: Katherine R. Brown (undergraduate senior) has been accepted to participate in the UCF Graduate RAMP Fellowship program, beginning in fall 2006. She also received a $1000 research grant for her upcoming work from the Wildlife Society. Katherine is also the only College of Science inductee into the prestigious UCF Order of Pegasus for 2006.

Graduate, March, 2006: Michelle Boudreaux (graduated from the Biology Master of Science program Fall 2005) was awarded the University Award for Outstanding Masters Thesis. She will be recognized at the University Awards Breakfast on March 31, 2006.

Graduate, March, 2006: Melinda Donnelly (Biology MS, admitted spring 2004) won Best Oral Presentation in the Life and Health Sciences category of UCF's 2006 Graduate Research Forum for her presentation titled "Success of Water Dispersal as a Secondary Dispersal Vector for Brazilian Pepper(Schinus terebinthifolius)in a Florida Estuary".