Given the uncertainties surrounding the current COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Biology will hold virtual seminars during Fall 2020 semester. Please contact the Dr. Michael McCoy, Seminar Committee chair, for...
Over the last few years we have had the opportunity to get to know these amazing students. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented us from celebrating their success in person. In spite of this, we recognize their accomplishments obtained while at East Carolina University, and congratulate them on their achievement!...
Congratulations to these hard working seniors graduating in the majors of Biology and Biochemistry for completing an undergraduate research thesis!...
Congrats to our Robert H. Wright Leadership Award recipient, graduating senior Pranaya Pakala! The Robert H. Wright Leadership Award recognizes academic achievement, service (both to the university and the community), and leadership qualities (both potential and exhibited) of undergraduate seniors, and is awarded annually by the ECU Alumni Association....
Congratulations to these four outstanding seniors graduating in the majors of Biology and Biochemistry....
Congratulations to all of those students graduating with a degree from the Department of Biology. Completing a college degree at any level is challenging enough and the transition to online instruction and virtual meetings during this past semester brought new challenges to everyone - which y'all overcame! Well done!!...
The final round of the 2019-20 Prirate Entrepreneurship Challenge concluded Wednesday night with FishingLicense.us taking first place. FishingLicense.us is the team of ECU biology major Mallory Miles and her software developer husband, Felipe de Araujo. The online company streamlines the process of registering for a fishing license with the goal of making outdoor recreation more accessible to everyone....
Darwin Day 2020 proved to be a celebration of science and curiosity! A well attended event with Darwin related talks and trivia. Thanks to the organizers and all who attended.
Our RIP series is designed to give up-and-coming biologists a chance to practice their presentation skills in a formal, but friendly environment. RIP speakers consist of both invited speakers and...
As part of his dissertation, Moore is testing whether parasites can be used as indicators for the presence of their hosts in different shoreline environments (natural and artificial). However, many...
Chris Balakrishnan and Robert Driver are contributing authors of a study exploring how the cowbird learns to identify its own kind, despite being raised by a different species. Former ECU postdoctoral scholar Matthew Louder was lead author....
A team of ECU Fisheries Researchers, headed by Dr. Rebecca Asch, have been awarded $483,952 over two years to identify offshore migratory corridors and spawning habitat of southern flounder. The funding is provided by the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries....
Refreshments will be served beginning at 3:30 PM.
Rebecca Asch received a prestigious fellowship, as she was one of 126 recipients (one of eight for Ocean Sciences) of the 2018 Sloan Research Fellowship, recognizing her as one of the top early-career researchers in the United States and Canada....
Katie Clements from the Issa lab is among only 10 students nationally to be accepted into the Marine Biological Laboratory neurobiology course. Acceptance is highly competitive and is accompanied with the prestigious $8,000 MBLfellowship Award. The course will provide Katie with advanced training in cutting-edge neuroscience techniques....
Drs. Brewer, Field and Rulifson were awarded a grant from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and NOAA Fisheries to further ground-truth a new way to survey blueback herring using Environmental DNA (eDNA)....
Rebecca Asch is lead author of an article published in Marine Policy, and highlighted in several news sites, including Newsweek. The article reports on how changes in physical parameters in the Pacific Ocean alters niche availability for commercially important fish and invertebrate species, resulting in migration to more suitable habitats or decreased abundance of these species....
Congratulations to Steven Orr, a graduate student in Dr. Issa's lab, winner of the People's Choice award, and to all presenting at the 2017 Three Minute Thesis Competition. Thanks to their efforts (and their mentors), Biology was able to retain the Departmental Championship Title!...
BRUCE PANNETON (BS Biology ’96, MS Biology ’02 with Professor Hal J. Daniel, III) is now Dean of Health Sciences and Public Safety at Edgecombe Community College, NC. Bruce is former chair of the Science Department at ECC and received the ECC Keihin Endowed Faculty Chair in 2009 which rewards excellence in teaching....
Heather Vance-Chalcraft and Claudia Jolls will be collaborating on a National Science Foundation Noyce Grant, which will provide 30 scholarships for ECU students to earn science or mathematics teaching licensure and a master's degree....
Biology Alumnus (BS ‘76 and MS ’79); Dr. Robert Twilley has been honored by Environmental Law Institute as the recipient of the 2017 National Wetlands Award for Science Research. Dr. Mark Brinson received the same award in 1995, so ECU Biology can claim TWO recipients of this prestigious award!...
Congratulations to Elizabeth Ables who was selected by a committee of faculty and graduate students as the winner of the 5th Annual ECU Distinguished Graduate Faculty Mentor Award, Master’s Category....
Joe Luczkovich was recently elected as the President-Elect of the Atlantic Estuarine Research Society (AERS), the oldest scientific society dedicated to the study of estuaries in the world -founded in 1948. Joe will serve one year as President-Elect, two years as President and two more years as Past-President. Congratulations!...
Dr. Bob Christian is co-author of a recently published article presenting an approach for predicting the role of individual taxa in the response of food webs to perturbations, and using this framework to quantify the relative trophic importance and oil sensitivity of salt marsh organisms to the 2010 Deepwater Horizonspill....
Congratulations to Beth Thompson who was recognized with an ECU 2016-2017 Scholar-Teacher Award. The Award Ceremony will be held on Thursday, April 20 2017 from 5:00-6:30 pm in the Murphy Center....
Congratulations to Dr. Ariane Peralta who was nominated and selected to be this year's awardee for the 2017 Coastal Maritime Council Coastal Scholar Award, based on her demonstrated intellectual merit and broader impacts as a coastal scholar during her time at ECU....
Congratulations to Kyle Summers, who was recently honored with a 2017 East Carolina University Lifetime Research/Creative Activity Award....
Rebecca Asch is co-author of a manuscript recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that examines the relationship between phytoplankton productivity and fisheries catch on a global scale, and makes projections of the future impacts of climate change on fisheries catch potential....
Congratulations to Molly Albecker on receiving a competitive NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant in the Directorate for Biological Sciences! Her award is titled "DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Mechanisms of adaptation to saltwater by an amphibian." Molly is a PhD candidate in the lab of Dr. Michael McCoy in the Biology department....
Award winning biology professor, Dr. Carol Goodwillie, to speak at ECU fall commencement....
Two Biology undergraduates and their research opportunities and experiences were featured in an ECU News Services article....
The November 2015 issue of Science includes a research article coauthored by Dr. Chris Balakrishnan. The article investigates recombination hotspots in species lacking the PRDM9 gene....
A paper in Nature Genetics coauthored by Biology's Dr. Sue McRae (published online 16 November 2015) detailing the role of a supergene in determining highly divergent male reproductive morphs in the ruff has generated significant interest in the popular press, including the Washington Post....
Four graduate students, MS students Gina Bledsoe (Dr. Peralta), Tori Goerig (Dr. Ardon), Tom Miller (Dr. Issa) and PhD student Suelen Tuillo (Dr. Chalcraft), presented their research at the 2015 ECU 3 MT Thesis completion. Tom and Suelen were selected as finalists in the competition and Tom won the People's Choice Award, one of the two top prizes at the 3MT competition....
Jolls lab research on the effect of invasive plants and weevils on the endangered Pitcher's Thistle receives coverage in "Great Lakes Echo."...
ECU Biology Advancement Council tours Tar River with Dean Bill Downs and Distinguished Prof. Roger Rulifson, after record year of fundraising....
Biology students Molly Albecker, Daniel Newhouse and numerous others are among a new generation of researchers - graduate students and early career professors - who are embracing social media, blogs...
Alums and friends of Biology join us for drinks, snacks, Oct. 16, 5-7pm in Howell N102 with Ariane Peralta: If you build it, will 'they' come?: Restoring ecosystems, many microbes...
Chris Anderson, an incoming Ph.D. student joining Dr. Jeff McKinnon's lab, has received extensive online coverage for a new paper published in Evolution (Early View, August 26 2015) on the origins of female genital diversity....
The recent spike in shark attacks along the coast of North Carolina has resulted in the media and public looking to ECU shark biologists Dr. Roger Rulifson and CRM student Chuck Bangley for answers. They have been quoted in articles published from the local Daily Reflector to AsiaOne in Singapore!...
Dr. Chris Balakrishnan and his lab continue to be successful in securing research funding, recently receiving $390,000 from the National Science Foundation to study brain development in the African pin-tailed...
The cover of the current issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology features an image of Ranitomeya summersi,(named after Dr. Kyle Summers) taken by his graduate student, Adam Stuckert. The image accompanies an article reviewing the relationship between honest signaling theory and warning coloration....
Faten Taki, an IDPBS Ph.D. candidate, is the recipient of the 2015 ECU Sigma Xi Chapter Student Helms Award. She was honored for her work showing the sensitivity of the post-embryonic stage to drugs of abuse like nicotine and its impact on subsequent generations....
Dr. John Stiller was elected as Chair of the Faculty for the 2015/2016 academic year
Dr. Marcelo Ardon-Sayao was one of two assistant professors at East Carolina University to receive the inaugural Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Early Career Award, announced Friday, May 15, at a special reception....
Dr. Mary Farwell was honored on April 13 as one of ten inspiring ECU women in a ceremony that celebrated the impacts that women have on ECU and the world.
Congratulations to Dr. Jinling Huang, who has been named one of the recipients of the ECU Five-Year Achievement Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity. He will be honored at a lecture and reception at 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 29, at the ECU East Carolina Heart Institute Auditorium....
The Board of Governors of the 17-campus University North Carolina have selected Dr. Carol Goodwill as one of the University's most outstanding faculty to receive its 2015 Awards for Excellence...
Dr. Carol Goodwillie received funds from the faculty senate’s Teaching Grants Committee – making the first service learning science course at ECU possible. Thirty of Goodwillie’s students helped remove invasive...
Dr. Ariane Peralta and three co-authors published an article in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, "A social-ecological framework for 'micromanaging' microbial services", that was featured on the cover of the November 2014 issue....
Molly Albecker (Ph D student,CRM), Bevin Blake (MS Biology student), Payal Chokshi (MS Biology & MBA student), Ian Davison (MS Biology student), Dorothy Dobbins—Finalist (Molecular Biology/Biotechnology student), Matt Edwards (MS Biology student), Scott Jones (PhD student, IDPBS), Morgan Kain--Winner, catchiest title (MS Biology student), Lauren McCarthy—Finalist (PhD student, IDPBS), Jillian Osborne (MS Biology student), Adam Stuckert (PhD student, IDPBS), Lenny Yong (PhD student, IDPBS)...
Four researchers in the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Department of Biology at East Carolina University have secured a Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation....
An undergraduate student of Dr. Yiping Qi is the first author of a Perspective article in Science magazine about the possible mechanism of ALS disease. Joseph W. Paul III completed a prestigious summer internship in Stanford University, during which he helped his internship advisor review two original manuscripts on the topic, which resulted in the published article....
Dr. Krista McCoy presented a talk about how environmental chemical exposure leads to endocrine disruption and childhood disease at the recent TEDMED live talk on September 12, 2014. Dr. McCoy...
A paper on mimicry and speciation in the Peruvian poison frog, Ranitomeya imitator, was published in Nature Communications in August 2014. The paper was authored by Evan Twomey and Dr....
Dr. Roger Rulifson, professor in the Department of Biology and senior scientist with the ECU Institute for Coastal Science and Policy, was named a 2014 Thomas Harriot College of Arts...
Research from the ECU Department of Biology on Peruvian glassfrogs was highlighted in National Geographic. Graduate student Evan Twomey, quoted in the piece, has teamed with former grad student Jesse Delia in the research. According to the article, the research has identified four new species of the see-through frogs, some with green bones. The species is known for gaudy coloring including yellow circles around the eyes....
Lauren McCarthy, a Ph.D. student in Dr. Dave Chalcraft's lab, was selected as the winner of the Ecological Society of America Aquatic Ecology Section Best Student Talk Award at the...
A recent article by Dr. Chris Balakrishnan and collaborators published in PeerJ was honored as a top pick for 2014 (20 articles selected from 471 published), and a top animal behavior paper for November 2014....
Jeff McKinnon and Chris Balakrishnan for their recent NIH grant Dave Chalcraft and Heather Vance-Chalcraft for a Centennial Award for Service. Anne Bunnell for a Robert L. Jones Award for...
And Chris Balakrishnan, Founder/Godfather of Nerd Nite, and Assistant Professor of Evolutionary Biology. Nerd Nite has teamed up with the Smithsonian's second annual The Future Is Here Festival May 16-18, 2014 in Washington DC so you can learn about the merging of science and science fiction from the most prestigious minds in the world while having fun!...
GREENVILLE, N.C. (April 10, 2014) — Dr. Edmund Stellwag, director of the East Carolina University Genomics Core Facility and Biotechnology Education Program and associate professor of biology, has received a North Carolina Biotechnology Center grant for the purchase of an Ion Proton DNA sequencer that will benefit collaborators from both East and West campuses....
Molly Albecker (Dr. M. McCoy) was the recipient of two awards in support of her study of the long-term ecological consequences of sea level rise and saltwater intrusion into coastal...
Two students studying in the Biochemical Toxicology lab of Dr. Xiaoping Pan were the first authors of two recently published papers featured by the Editor-in-Chief of the professional journal Archives...
Two graduate students (Faten Taki and Dorothy Dobbins) and two undergraduate students (Joseph Polli and Erin Connolly) won presentation awards at the November 8-9 Sigma XI Student Research Conference, held...
Jeff McKinnon, Professor and Chair of the Department of Biology, has published an invited commentary in leading journal Nature on the "rare male effect" in the guppy. Maria Servedio, Associate...
Functional diversity within a morphologically conservative genus of predators: implications for functional equivalence and redundancy in ecological communities. Functional Ecology 2007, 21, 793–804
THCAS Advancement Council Distinguished Professorship in the Natural Sciences and Mathematics and the Department of Biology Present "Genomic Insights into Poison Frog Behavior and Diversity" Dr. Lauren O'Connell FAS Center for System Biology at Harvard University at 4 pm, Oct 24, 2013 in room C309 of the Science and Technology Building...
As new board member Dr. Reyes is tasked with overseeing the implementation CERF's mission and strategic plan for the duration of their term. The CERF is a multidisciplinary organization of...
Associate Chief of Pathology for Research at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School Dr. J. Keith Joung will Present, "Editing Genes to Understand and Treat Disease." October 17, 12-1pm @ C307 Science and Technology Building Additional information can be found at Burroughs Wellcome Lecture ...
GREENVILLE, N.C. (June 19, 2013) — In recent weeks, research conducted by an East Carolina University professor has appeared in two major science publications. Dr. Marcelo Ardón-Sayao, assistant professor of...
ECU’s Center for Biodiversity is delighted to announce the winner of our first annual Biodiversity Scholarship competition for Pitt County high school students conducting research projects on local plant and animal biodiversity. Ms. Alina Suedbeck won the $1000 scholarship for her research entitled "Lepidoptera Caterpillar Spiracle Variation". Participating students were matched with an ECU mentor to assist them in project planning. Completed projects were presented at ECU’s annual Earth Day Expo on April 18th....
Dear ECU Community – It is my pleasure and honor to announce the recipients of the ECU Lifetime and Five-Year Achievement Awards for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity and...
GREENVILLE, N.C. (Feb. 26, 2013) — Every 40 seconds someone in the United States suffers a stroke, and nearly 40 percent of those survivors will suffer a recurrent stroke within...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE UNC Biology Chairpersons Gather at ECU to Discuss Educational Challenges GREENVILLE, N.C. (Jan. 30, 2013) — Nearly a dozen biology department chairpersons from across the UNC System...
ECU Community – Happy New Year! Please recall that ECU conducted an internal seed grant competition, the East-West Collaboration Program, during fall semester 2012. The Division of Research and Graduate...
On Aug. 17, 2012, the 30 freshmen in the newly formed BioLL traveled to Washington, NC by bus with Drs. Mary Farwell, Enrique Reyes and Lee Sutton. The group was...
Six North Carolina graduate students are among the winners of the 2012 Walter B. Jones Sr. Awards, issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The awards for Excellence in...
GREENVILLE, N.C. (June 21, 2012) — Researchers are hoping to get a rare peek this summer at an elusive bird hiding in the marshes of Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge....
DATE: Saturday, October 13, 2012 START TIME: 1:00 pm (Game at 4:30 pm) WE PROVIDE: Bratwurst, Veggie Burgers, & Drinks YOU PROVIDE: Good Cheer and antacids! LOCATION: Belk Building parking...
Students Scott Jones (Chalcraft Lab), Lauren McCarthy (Chalcraft Lab), Sam Mears (McKinnon Lab), Evan Twomey (Summers lab) and Lenny Yong (McKinnon lab) PhD candidate Ewan Twomey was recently awarded an...
Christensen, Farwell, Hager, McKinnon and West Biology award nominees honored at the Founders Day University Awards Celebration and an associated celebration of patent holders were: Anthony Capehart (Board of Governors...
Andrew M. Cathey was awarded Best Student Oral Presentation at the Southeastern Estuarine Research Society meeting in Beaufort, NC during 11-13 April, 2012. Drew received the award for his paper...
Lindsay D. Leverett has received the prestigious ASB Student Research Award ($1000), at the 73rd annual meeting of the Association of Southeastern Biologists, Athens, GA, given for an especially meritorious...