2024 Biological Sciences Newsletter
- Message from the Chair
- Department Spotlights
- Other Biology Headlines
- Department Kudos
- Alumni Class Notes
Message From the Chair
Greetings to all of our alumni from the George Washington University Department of Biological Sciences!
As the new department chair, I am thrilled to share a series of recent success stories by our team. In this newsletter, you’ll read about our faculty who had their research featured on the cover of Science magazine twice in the last six months, and about Assistant Professor Sandy Kawano receiving the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award. You’ll also learn more about other achievements in our community of alumni, faculty and students.
Thank you so much for your support and involvement. Please stay in touch.
Guillermo Ortí
Louis Weintraub Professor of Biology and Department Chair
Department Spotlights
High-Profile Research on Cicadas and Snakes
Two CCAS biology professors each had important research featured on the cover of the prestigious journal, Science—in just six months! In his study, Professor John Lill and his students revealed how the 2021 Brood X of cicadas altered the diets of birds and feeding patterns of other creatures in the forest. Cicadas emerge from the ground every 13 or 17 years. His cicada research also appeared in GW Today.
In a separate study, Associate Professor Alex Pyron and collaborators completed the most comprehensive evolutionary tree of snakes that shows their rapid evolution and diversification into multiple ecological and natural history dimensions. His research also appeared in GW Today.
Sandy Kawano Wins CAREER Award
Assistant Professor Sandy Kawano received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development CAREER grant of more than one million dollars to study salamander locomotion.
Her project will integrate physiology, engineering and evolutionary biology to examine how habitat preference and development affects the structure and function of bones and whole-organism performance in locomotion. A Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience for post-baccalaureates in biology will broaden the participation of learners from historically excluded communities. In addition, Kawano, the leader of the Fins and Limbs Lab, will host a “Salamander Safaris” event during Amphibian Week to promote the participation of girls in STEM.
Other Biology Headlines
- T. Rex Reunion: New Discovery Grows Dinosaur Family Tree
- Ant Factor: How Tiny Insects Shape Biodiversity
- Andrés, Granberg Highlight Global Food Solutions
- Summer School: Bio Students Thrive in Harlan Fellowship
- Digitized Collections Bring Natural History to Classrooms
Department Kudos
- Keryn Gedan was quoted by Bay Journal in the article “For better or worse, invasive phragmites is here to stay.”
- Patricia Hernandez was named president of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology—the first woman from an underrepresented minority group to hold the position in the society’s 133-year history. She was quoted by Science in the article “Tales of The Tongue.”
- Gustavo Hormiga was quoted by The New York Times in the article “This Body Butter at Sephora Doesn’t Really Attract Spiders, Right?;’’by Science News in the article “Some cannibal pirate spiders trick their cousins into ‘walking the plank’”; and his research was cited by St. Vincent Times in the article “U.S. scientists discover rare Velvet worm species on Vermont Nature trail.”
- Tien Huynh, BS ’23, published the research article “The nematode parasite Steinernema hermaphroditum is pathogenic to Drosophila melanogaster larvae without activating their immune response” in microPublication Biology. Co-authors included Biology Professors Damien O'Halloran and Ioannis Eleftherianos.
- Carly Jordan received a five-year, $2 million NSF award for Improving Undergraduate STEM Education, a project to assess the impacts of Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences using digitized Natural History Collections data.
- Sandy Kawano was quoted by National Geographic in the article “Why did humans evolve to blink?”
- Damien O'Halloran was among the recipients of a $444,125 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases award to explore pyrantel resistance in hookworm nematodes.
- John Lill was quoted by BBC Wildlife in the article “Billions of cicadas are about to emerge in Illinois, and scientists don’t know what will happen”; by IFL Science in the article “Cicadapocalypse Returns To The US With First Double Brood Emergence In 221 Years”; and by Washingtonian in the article “Sorry, Cicada Lovers—the Next Big Broods Will Skip the DC Area.”
- In addition, his research with Zoe Getman-Pickering on the impact of the 2021 cicada emergence on forest ecosystems was featured by Science in the article “Periodical cicadas disrupt trophic dynamics through community-level shifts in avian foraging’’; by New Scientist in the article “Emergence of huge cicada generation in 2021 led to a caterpillar boom”; and by PhysOrg in the article “Unearthing the ecological impacts of cicada emergences on North American forests.” They were both quoted by Science in the article "When birds gorge on cicadas, caterpillars go unchecked and chomp their way through oak forests."
- Getman-Pickering also spoke to Canada’s CBC News about her research detailing the impact of the 2021 cicada emergence on forest ecosystems in the segment “Cicadas boom and trees get busted.” She was quoted by Smithsonian Magazine in the article “Huge Cicada Broods Have Ripple Effects on Birds, Caterpillars and Trees” and by DCist in the article “Cicadas Are ‘Little Hamburgers Falling From The Sky,’ Disrupting The Food Web Every 17 Years.”
- Scott Powell was awarded a $645,000 four-year project from NSF to address fundamental questions about how competition shapes both the production and maintenance of biodiversity.
- R. Alexander Pyron’s research was cited by numerous news outlets, including Fox News in the article “New Mexico study shows newly discovered dinosaur subspecies predates Tyrannosaurus rex”; by Albuquerque Journal in the article “Something to roar about: Researchers uncover another Tyrannosaurus species in New Mexico”; by KRQE-CBS13, Albuquerque, in the article “Fossil found in New Mexico is a new relative of the T. rex, researchers say”; and by Earth.com in the article “New dinosaur species, Tyrannosaurus mcraeensis, discovered in New Mexico.”
Alumni Class Notes
Ziyana Alrawahi, BS ’91, received their PhD in environmental science and public policy from George Mason University. The title of their doctoral dissertation is: “The Sustainability of an Ancestral Water Acquisition System: A Study on Falaj Daris.”
Bibhas Amatya, BA ’20, is a medical student at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and interested in pursuing a surgical specialty.
Robert Bayewitch, BS ’74, retired as a dentist.
Parag Bhanot, BA ’97, is a professor of surgery and plastics and reconstructive surgery at Georgetown School of Medicine
Nicole Casasanta, BS ’16, completed internal medicine residency at Mount Sinai Hospital and now serves as chief resident in the Department of Medicine. She matched for fellowship in hematology/oncology at Yale-New Haven Hospital and will begin this position in July 2024.
George Chang, BS ’82, has been working in General Urology at Medstar Washington Hospital Center since 1998.
Domencis Ciampa, BS ’17, is pursuing his doctorate in nursing at Boston College, training to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
Victoria Costa, BA ’13, is the assistant medical director of the blood bank at NYU Langone Tisch Hospital and assistant professor in the Department of Pathology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
Susan Estabrooks, BS ’91, is head of market access at Mirvie. Their efforts focus on improving coverage and reimbursement to increase access to a test to identify pregnant women at increased risk for preeclampsia months before it occurs.
Melanie Fisher, BS ’2023, worked as a research technician at the Ohio State University studying vestibular schwannomas. She is currently focusing on the effect of collagen in the tumor microenvironment.
Holly Ganz, BS ’92, visited with classmates, Krissy and Kevin Kivimaki. She is now the chief science officer of AnimalBiome, a California-based company that provides microbiome assessments and creates novel supplements to restore and support pet health.
Daniel Halsted, BA ’21, is thrilled to be continuing his research at Kite Pharma in Santa Monica, Calif. His investigations into immunological cancer therapies have been fascinating.
Marissa Hanzlik, BS ’23, is completing a year-long entomology fellowship at the Electron and Confocal Microscopy Unit of the United States Department of Agriculture.
Charles Hertz, BS ’23, is working at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City as a clinical research coordinator for the Tisch Cancer Center where they help run clinical trials focused on the experimental treatment of myeloproliferative neoplasms.
Elizabeth Hill, BS ’09, is a hematologist/oncologist working on clinical trials for multiple myeloma at the NCI in Bethesda, Md.
Brian Hoppy, BS ’90, is a senior vice president and director of cross sector for HDR and currently resides in Philadelphia, Penn. He oversees a team of over 2,500 scientists, planners and consultants supporting HDR’s infrastructure work.
Norma Talley, BA ’81, is happily retired after a long career in the pharmaceutical industry.