New paper and student awards

Sunrise, not sunset!

A busy year and I’ve gotten behind on updates— some notable cool things that happened amidst a global pandemic…

• Proud of our new paper out in Functional Ecology, in which Sarah Richman and a great team explored how natural chemicals found in some plants’ nectars (caffeine, thymol, and digoxin, found in Citrus, thyme, and foxglove respectively…) interact with neonicotinoid pesticides to influence bee health and behavior. Read our blog post about it here!

• Big congratulations to two PhD students, Jess and Anna who each received fellowships— Anna a 3-year NIFA Predoctoral Fellowship to study the effects of pesticides and fungicides on bees and plants, and Jess a 3- year NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to focus on pollen chemistry and bee behavior. Lots to celebrate!

What a year...

Comings and goings

Seems like time for an update! Despite all the challenges thrown our way by the pandemic (lab shutdowns, conference cancellations, online teaching), some bright spots of the past year:

• Jake Francis defended his dissertation, and left to begin a postdoctoral position at UC Davis with Dr. Rachel Vannette. We can’t wait to see what cool insights into plant-microbe-pollinator interactions he uncovers! Congrats!

• We collectively decided that learning more about microbes would be a good pandemic project— so we (co first authors Jake Francis and Anna Tatarko produced a new paper in Current Opinion in Insect Science that explores how insights from the world of pollinator behavior might inform research into floral microbes, and vice versa.

• Anthony Vaudo rounded up an impressive dataset on the macronutrient content of different plant species’ pollens (alongside data on bee corbicular loads), and in his 2020 paper, also provides a useful methodology.

• PI Leonard “returned” from sabbatical and was, as they say on the Great British Bake Off show, chuffed to receive the 2020 NSHE Graduate Academic Advisor Award. Truly chuffed!

Summer 2019

Campus workspace

As spring semester comes to an end, some lab highlights!

• Felicity ended her postdoctoral era with a new publication on how neonicotinoid pesticides impact learning in free-flying bees, and now heads to UT-Austin to begin her faculty position.

• Jake received 2nd place in the UNR Graduate Student Association’s Student Paper Competition! A version of this work will be out in press in a few weeks, so stay tuned…

• Anna received a Hadley-Lynch Scholarship from the UNR Biology Department!

• PI Leonard received the Hyung K. Shin Award for Excellence in Research from the College of Science. It was great to have all our hard work recognized in this way!

Now for a busy but hopefully productive summer! Many of us will be at conferences (e.g. International Pollinator Conference at UC Davis, Evolution). PI Leonard is starting a year of leave, so may be a bit slower to answer emails than normal.

Well that was a good semester

Now that grades are submitted and the summer is stretching before us, what happened this Spring? A lot!

• Jake received the Jenkins Fellowship, and Devon the Broussard Fellowship from EECB.
• Felicity received the first-ever UNR Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring award.
• Crystal and Prag presented great posters at the UNR Undergraduate Research Poster Session.
• At the Pacific Branch meeting of the Entomological Society of America, Jake received First Place for his 10 minute talk, and Rebekah was awarded 2nd place in the Undergraduate Poster Competition.
• We shrunk ourselves down and took a new set of lab photos!

The summer should be jam packed with mentoring workshops (AL), Floral volatile workshops (JF and DP), presentations at Animal Behavior (AL) and the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution (FM). On top of all that, new PhD student Anna is joining the lab soon!

L'Oreal USA/AAAS Fellowship to Felicity Muth!

Exciting news in the lab! Felicity has been awarded a highly prestigious L'Oreal USA Postdoctoral Fellowship for Women in Science!

This fellowship will allow her to take her research on bees, pesticides, and cognition in some new and exciting directions! For a full breakdown, check out the official Press Release!

Mentoring Award!

Celebrating at Midtown Eats with a "Bee's Knees" cocktail

I was honored to receive the 2017 "Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor" award, from UNR! We try hard to create a research environment in which undergraduates have a chance to get a taste of science. Thanks everyone!!!!

2017 Bee Bake Off!

Felicity's edible bumblebee colony, complete with honeypots

Springtime, and lots to celebrate!

• Emily Breslow successfully defended her honors thesis on octopamine
• Devon and Jake received Whittell Fellowships for research at Little Valley
• Devon won 4th place ($250) for her poster at the UC Davis Bee Symposium, and Felicity gave an excellent lighting talk!
• Crystal Wang received a Nevada Undergraduate Research Award to fund an independent research project
• And, we had our annual Bee Bake Off!! Held annually in memory of Harvi Singh (a former undergrad who brought his A-game to bee-themed baking), we had many tasty contributions. This years's winner? Jake Francis! Pictured holding the "B" trophy, for his orange-buttercream bumblebee macarons.

End of year awards

The end of the year brought two reasons to attend the Biology Awards ceremony: Simon White successfully presented his Biology With Distinction project to the department, and Devon Picklum received a Wilson Scholarship!

Mentoring award

It's an honor to have received the EECB program's Stephen Jenkins Mentoring Award!

UNR College of Science Poster Session

Happy poster presenters and mentors!

The 2015 COS Poster competition just wrapped up, and we were pleased to present five posters in the undergraduate and graduate divisions. All did amazingly well, and their posters will soon be on display in our building. Excitingly, Emily was awarded first place, and Cheyenne third place. Congrats to all on a great showing!

1st place in Sigma Xi Student Research Showcase

Congratulations to Amanda! She was awarded first place in the Sigma Xi Student Research Showcase (Physiology & Immunology Undergraduate Division). Amanda heroically/skillfully filmed herself narrating a slideshow, and maintained a blog about her project where she answered judges' questions.

Her award-winning blog can be seen here: http://ascampini.tumblr.com/

College of Science Poster Session 2015

Simon, Phillip and Harvi gave excellent poster presentations...and congrats to Jake who won 3rd place!

General Undergraduate Research Award Winners

Congrats to Brandy Reynolds, Amanda Scampini, Phillip Breslow, and Simon White for successful proposals! Full sweep!

End of $emester

Congrats to Jake Francis and Brandy Reynolds, who both received good news at the end of the semester-- EECB research funds (Jake) and Biology Dept. Scholarship! (Brandy).

View from UNR's Little Valley Research station

Summer awaits!!

Thermal imaging, here we come!

 Proposal for FLIR Camera and LI-COR funded!
 

Congrats to Jake Francis, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship recipient!!

College of Science Poster Competition 2014

Jake Brannam and Amanda Scampini represented us-- and, excitingly, Amanda won first place!
 

Dean's Graduate Scholar Award

Congrats to UNR College of Science Dean's Graduate scholar recipient, Jake Francis!

$ummer funding!

Congrats to Sigma Xi grant-in-aid of research and I.N.B.R.E summer fellowship recipient Amanda Scampini!

Grant funded by NSF!!

Buzz pollination grant funded by NSF!!!! UNR Press Release