News

Elena Litchman is internationally recognized for her research on phytoplankton communities in both freshwater and marine environments. Elena's many accolades include the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and a National Science Foundation Career Award. Now she can add MSU Foundation Professor to the list.

Zoology major, Olivia Guswiler, has been awarded the 2016 Dr. Marvin Hensley Endowed Scholarship Fund in Zoology. Olivia came to Michigan State University as a transfer student to study Zoology in 2015. Her career goal is to conduct field-based research that will help conserve the natural world.

The National Science Foundation awarded Jenny Boughman and a team of researchers a “Dimensions of Biodiversity” grant to pursue novel research studying the evolution of threespine stickleback throughout Iceland. 

Julia Ganz, who joined the Integrative Biology faculty in 2017, recently published a paper in the journal, Developmental Dynamics, about gene expression properties of stem cells in the enteric nervous system (ENS).

Tayler Chicoine has always been passionate about improving the state of our agricultural system. In fall 2016 Tayler began her graduate research in the lab of Sarah Evans at MSU's W.K. Kellogg Biological Station. Tayler is exploring plant-microbial interactions and hoping to better understand how, through selecting for beneficial plant-microbial systems, we can naturally improve agricultural systems. To support her research interests, Tayler Chicoine has been awarded the C.S. Mott Predoctoral Fellowship in Sustainable Agriculture.

Mariah Meek, a new faculty member, has published new research in the journal, Ecology and Evolution. In this study, Mariah and her collaborators demonstrated the usefulness of genomic resources for identifying genetic markers that allow fast and accurate identification of the imperiled Chinook salmon in the Great Central Valley of California.

We are pleased to announce that Mariah Meek has joined our department as a new faculty member! Meek is a geneticist, fisheries ecologist, and conservation biologist. She is particularly interested in the evolutionary and ecological processes that generate and maintain diversity within and among populations.