Spring 2021 Insight Newsletter

Insight Spring 2021

Note from the Chair

Chair Dudley writes his final Chair's Note this spring, finishing up five years of service to the department in this role, and noting also the outstanding but similarly concluding service of Professor George Bentley in his capacity as Vice-chair.

	New Co-Chairs The Department of Integrative Biology will welcome two new co-chairs for its next term of leadership. Professors Tyrone Hayes and Eileen Lacey were recommended by their faculty peers to the joint position, which serves a period of three years at the discretion of the dean.

	Alumni Profile \| Joshua Peñalba Joshua Peñalba (BA 2013) came to the U.S. with his family as a small child, he was considered a “dreamer” under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. His journey to becoming an evolutionary biologist with a position in “museomics”: the study of genomics using DNA from historical museum specimens was supported by the IB community, which dreamed of his success.

	Accolades Celebrate the achievements of IB faculty, postdocs and students who recently received prestigious awards and grants. As well, we say goodbye to two of our esteemed faculty David Wake and William Clemens.

	Grad Profile \| Emily Lam A third-year PhD student in the Vázquez-Medina lab, Emily takes advantage of the endless possibilities for research in her supportive lab. The lab offers the best of two worlds—using biomedical technologies to understand physiology in less studied species as well as observing and interacting with animals in the field.

	Postdoc Profile \| Cara Brook Conservation biologist and disease ecologist Cara Brook for the past decade has been studying bat-borne viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 (which causes COVID) in Madagascar.

	Undergrad Profile \| Tamara Jafar After taking Professor Robert Full’s course on bioinspired design in her freshman year, Jafar was so excited by the subject that she created a syllabus for a course based on her interest in biology to meld her interests of engineering and design.

	IB Hand Sanitizer Project The IB Hand Sanitizer Project was born in April 2020. Volunteers have mixed 1,620 gallons of sanitizer!

	IB Alumni Where Are They Now? Connect with former classmates and learn about the inspiring work our alumni are doing in research, education, government, industry and much more.

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