Congratulations to course organizers/leaders Ben Freeman and Alexa Class Freeman, and to the student co-authors, for the first of several scientific papers arising out of their Spring 2015 Advanced Tropical Ornithology course. Back at the curriculum review stage there was some healthy push-back when peer-reviewed student publications were suggested as…
Congratulations to grad student Natalie Hofmeister for winning the first-year award for best presentation at the 40th annual Cornell EEB research symposium. Natalie talked about her MS project on Environmental fluctuations influence the evolution of the glucocorticoid receptor in African starlings.
Ben Van Doren is a Marshall Scholar! Senior undergraduate Ben Van Doren has been selected as Cornell’s only Marshall Scholar, winning this very prestigious fellowship for post-graduate study at Oxford University where he will continue to study aspects of avian migration. Ben’s honors research in our lab includes his comparative…
Irby appointed as Fuller Professor of Ornithology: This is old news in some ways, but the Cornell Chronicle just ran an article about the new Fuller Chair of Ornithology: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/10/fuller-gift-keeps-lab-ornithology-soaring. I’m very proud to be associated in this role with Larry and Nancy Fuller, who have long been such staunch…
Congrats to postdoc Leo Campagna for making the cover of Molecular Ecology with his most recent research paper on seedeaters!
Katie Wagner wins the Dobzhansky Prize! Warmest of congratulations to lab group alumna Dr. Katie Wagner for being recognized at the highest level by her community of scientific colleagues. The Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize is awarded annually by the Society for the Study of Evolution “to recognize the accomplishments and future…
Scott Taylor accepts tenure-track job at U. Colorado!: Warmest of congratulations to Scott for finalizing his future professioral appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder — a strong department in a great place to call home. Both Scott…
Bittersweet congratulations to Yula Kapetanakos, who got her PhD in our lab last year and who has been working since then just down the hall as an Associate Producer in the Lab’s multimedia unit, largely on an incredible conservation story on the Philippine Eagle. We will be very sorry to…
Congratulations to Becca Brunner (former undergrad and more recently our jack-of-all-trades teacher, course developer, editor, etc. while also a MS student in the Webster Lab) for deciding to head west to Berkeley for her PhD studies starting this Fall!
Congratulations to grad student Nick Mason for winning the Cornelia Ye Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, which recognizes an outstanding TAs who has demonstrated excellence and dedication in their instructional responsibilities. This university-wide award honors the important contributions made by teaching assistants towards enhancing undergraduate and graduate education at Cornell University.…
Congratulations to postdoc Leo Campagna, who has just been selected as a Genomics Scholar by the Cornell Vertebrate Genomics program. This award recognizes Leo’s leadership and exciting research program, and provides substantial financial underwriting for Leo and his projects. Way to go, Leo!!!
Congratulations to Ben and his co-authors for their paper which just came out in the Auk. This is Ben’s first paper, and it results in part from his independent research as a high school student, before he even arrived at Cornell! Link to paper: http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1642/AUK-13-260.1
Taylor, S. A., Curry, R. L., White, T. A., Ferretti, V. and Lovette, I. (2014), Spatiotemporally consistent genomic signatures of reproductive isolation in a moving hybrid zone. Evolution, 68: 3066–3081. Abstract: Studies of hybrid zone dynamics often investigate a single sampling period and draw conclusions from that temporal snapshot. Stochasticity can,…
David’s commentary in The Auk provides a nicely balanced perspective on the opportunities and challenges of using different criteria to define avian species. Clicking on this post will open this announcement in a window where you can download David’s full commentary: Toews 2014 species commentary
And one on a spectacular avian radiation too: Berv, J. S., and R. O. Prum. 2014. A comprehensive multilocus phylogeny of the Neotropical cotingas (Cotingidae, Aves) with a comparative evolutionary analysis of breeding system and plumage dimorphism and a revised phylogenetic classification. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
Congratulations to Dan and his co-authors for their forthcoming cover article: ” Baldassarre, D. T., White, T. A., Karubian, J. and Webster, M. S. 2014. Genomic and morphological analysis of a semi-permeable avian hybrid zone suggests asymmetrical introgression of a sexual signal. Evolution. doi: 10.1111/evo.12457.”
Warmest of congratulations to Yula on the completion of her dissertation and the awarding of her PhD!!!
Congratulations to Nancy Chen for presenting and defending her dissertation on the “Genomics of population decline in the Florida Scrub-Jay.”
Warmest of congratulations to graduate student Jake Berv for being awarded a prestigious three-year NSF graduate research fellowship!!!
Warmest of congratulations to our Lab’s Class of 2014 graduates, including Hope Batcheller, Kathryn Grabenstein, Andy Johnson, Camille Shaw, and Aimee Van Tatenhove, plus all of the other wonderful Class of ’14 individuals we have known over the past four years!