Amy Burgin

 

AMES, Iowa – Returning to her home state, Amy Burgin will become the next chair for Iowa State University’s Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, effective Jan. 1, 2025.

Burgin will succeed Lynn Clark, who has served as the EEOB department’s interim chair since June 2021. Clark will continue in the interim department chair role through the fall 2024 semester.

“We are so thrilled that Dr. Burgin has accepted this position and look forward to the new and innovative ideas she will bring to the department,” said Daniel J. Robison, endowed dean’s chair of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “I also want to thank Dr. Clark for her excellent leadership and commitment to moving the department forward during these past three years.”

_{Photo by David Hillis}

EEOB faculty member Dr. Jonathan Wendel signs the National Academy of Sciences registration book that dates back to Abraham Lincoln’s original charter of the organization. Pictured with Dr. Wendel is NAS Home Secretary Nancy C. Andrews, Professor in Residence in Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School.

 

An Iowa State University professor is helping make immersive animal behavior research more accessible for students. With funding from a three-year federal grant, students selected for the program run by Corinna Most are paid to study olive baboons for eight weeks in Kenya, getting hands-on experience that’s valued in the field but difficult to acquire.

Most, an adjunct assistant professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology at Iowa State University, is a primatologist and the co-director of the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project (UNBP) in Kenya. She’ll lead five students on a trip there next summer to conduct paid field research, which could open doors to graduate school and research careers.

he Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) Fellows Program selected two Iowa State graduate students for its 2023 cohort. Oluwatuyi Olowoyeye, doctoral student in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, and Erika Ibarra-Garibay, doctoral student in Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, are the first students from Iowa State to be selected for this fellowship.

Created in 2018, the FFAR Fellows Program is a three-year program that provides doctoral students studying food and agriculture sciences with training, professional development, and opportunities to engage with industry and government leaders. Olowoyeye and Ibarra-Garibay are two of just 30 fellows in this year’s cohort.

The Bridging the Divide program aims to holistically address societal problems by fostering collaboration among researchers in design, arts, humanities, and social sciences and researchers in STEM disciplines. The program is administered by the Iowa State University Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) in partnership with the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities (CEAH). Assistant professor of anthropology and archaeologist Andrew Somerville, associate professor of ecology, evolution, and organismal biology (EEOB) Matthew Hufford, and EEOB Ph.D. student Heather Chamberlain-Irwin have received the annual award for 2023.

The National Academy of Sciences announced today the election of 120 members and 23 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Those elected today bring the total number of active members to 2,565 and the total number of international members to 526. International members are nonvoting members of the Academy, with citizenship outside the United States.

April 19, 2023 | Cambridge, MA – This year’s election of new members to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences maintains a commitment to honoring excellence that began more than 240 years ago. In 1780, the Academy’s founders – including John Adams and John Hancock – envisioned an organization that would recognize accomplished individuals and engage them in addressing the greatest challenges facing the young nation. The first members elected to the Academy in 1781 included Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.

Today, the Academy continues to be both an honorary society, electing new members from the non-profit, private, and public sectors, and an independent policy organization with initiatives in the arts, democracy, education, global affairs, and science.

Nathan Soley, Iowa State University, was awarded $3,000 from The Garden Club of America Montine M. Freeman Scholarship in Native Plant Studies to research ecological factors that affect plant diversity, flowering patterns, and pollinator communities at a prairie restoration in Ames on the Ag central research farms. 

Elizabeth McMurchie, Iowa State University, was awarded $2,900 to study Systematics of the Guadua paniculata species complex in Mexico

Jordan Nikkel, Iowa State University, graduate student in Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology Department, Ames IA, received a small grant for work on a floristic survey at the Marietta Sand Prairie Stat Preserve.

Iowa State is a Top-Producing Institution in the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program for 2022-23, as announced Feb. 10 by the U.S. Department of State. The university's seven scholars placed it among the top 13 among doctoral institutions, tying for the eighth spot with four other universities. The list also appears annually in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

As shared last summer, Iowa State's seven Fulbright Scholars this year are:

Iowa State Researcher Making the Leap into Novel Genomic Sequencing to Address Declining Bee Populations

By Caitlin Ware, Iowa State University Office of the Vice President for Research

Iowa State University’s 2023 Bailey Research Career Development award has been granted to a university researcher with her eyes set on mastering the emerging field of conservation genomics in order to answer a question with major environmental impact: where have all the bees gone?

By Whitney Baxter

Students may join the Iowa State University Bee & Wasp Squad with little background knowledge about the pollinator insects, but chances are, after spending a summer conducting field and lab work, they’ll walk away not only knowing more about bees and wasps, but more about themselves, as well.

Amy Toth, professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, initiated the Bee & Wasp Squad during the summer of 2021 to introduce undergraduate students to hands-on field work and research related to these pollinators. Financial support for the program came from an Iowa State Rossmann Manatt award Toth received.

The Smith Fellowship, the nation's premier postdoctoral program in conservation science, seeks to find solutions to the most pressing conservation challenges. Each Fellow’s research is conducted in partnership with a major academic institution and an “on the ground” conservation organization to help bridge the gap between theory and application.