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Bios The Biology Department Newsletter Spring 1999 Volume 14: No. 1, Editor: J. Maxwell, Publisher J.W. Dole California State University, Northridge Students Receive Grants, Fellowships, Fee Waivers Sandra Ng received a grant from the Southwest Parks and Monuments for $7500 and an award of $1720 from the University Corporation to fund her project "Evaluating Wildlife Use and Habitat Characteristics of Potential Corridors in the Santa Monica Mountains and Simi Hills, CA." Sandra is working under the guidance of Drs. Tom Valone and Jim Dole. Three of Dr. Randy Cohen's graduate students were awarded University Student Project Grants to support their thesis research. Chris Hernandez received $2300 to investigate the role of metabotropic glutamate receptors in the spastic rat. Agata Pikula's $2600 will fund her research on apoptosis. And new graduate student Stephen Bartlett will use his $1400 to study NMDA receptor pharmacology. Two Biology students, Nick Haring and Cecil Shikiya, were awarded a Teaching Associate fee waiver for spring semester, 1999. The value of the fee waiver may be as much as $792, depending upon the number of units taken. Jill Fariss, one of Dr. Tom Valone's graduate students, received a $1700 grant from the University Corporation to further her research into how repeated fires affect vegetation and bird community structure in the Santa Monica Mountains. Nicole Sodir, a Master's student in Dr. Joyce Maxwell's lab, received a Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research award for $600 to support her investigation of transposons in exotic strains of Neurospora crassa. Carlos Garibay received a scholarship of $900 for minority undergraduate students from the Alliance for Minority Participation in Science program. Nine students working with Dr. Aïda Metzenberg were awarded graduate student thesis performance grants from the University's Office of Graduate Studies, Research and International Programs (GRIP). The awardees are Jeanne Choi, Naghmah Dorrani, Janine McMurdie-Wengert, Tara Namey, Carlyne Palmero, Luisa Perez, Joy Philipson, Karoline Rostamiani, and Megan Verardo. Each received $300. Three of Dr. Steve Oppenheimer's graduate students, Mary Keens, Monica Tully and Brian Salbilla, received $300 thesis performance awards from the GRIP office. Mary is investigating adhesive interactions in a model system. Monica's thesis topic is sugar-containing receptors i sea urchin gastrulation. Brian is looking at specificity of lectin-bead-yeast cell interactions. Judy Peng, a graduate student in Dr. Cheryl Hogue's lab, received a Sea Grant Traineeship for $2000 to work on the macroparasites of Santa Monica Bay fishes. Judy is also the recipient of a $300 award from the GRIP office. Graduate student Karen Kesterson was awarded $300 from the GRIP Office to support her thesis project entitled "A rapid PCR method to detect Flexibacter maritimus in marine aquaculture." She is a student of Dr. Paul Tomasek. Carla Zilberberg, a student of Dr. Peter Edmunds, was awarded $300 from the GRIP office to support her research on competitive mechanisms among small corals. One of Dr. Jim Dole's students, John Ingrum, received a $200 GRIP award to support his study of perceived predation risk in fish. Four of Dr. Larry Allen's graduate students were awarded GRIP grants. Greg Benavides, Amy McClean, and Carol Phalen each received $300. Holly Harpham's award was $200. Students Present, Publish Their Research Monica Tully, a student working with Dr. Steven Oppenheimer, presented a poster paper on "Rapid Approaches to Cell Surface Studies" at the American Society for Cell Biology in San Francisco. Students Virginia Latham, Fabienne Ambroise, Rowena Bada, Monica Londono, Houman Vaghefi, Pavanjit Chhabra, Greg Hall, Bich Nguyen, Jessy Philip and Ron Roque were co-authors on the paper, as was Dr. Oppenheimer. An abstract of the paper was published in Molecular Biology of the Cell. Sean Yoder is first author on a recently accepted paper to appear in Applied and Environmental Microbiology published by the American Society for Microbiology. Sean's paper, based on his thesis research, is entitled "Comparison of Mycobacterium avium isolates obtained from patients and foods using polymerase chain reaction." Sean works under the guidance of Dr. Paul Tomasek, but conducts his research in Dr. Alan Holtzman's laboratory at UCLA's Olive View Education and Research Institute. John Ingrum, a graduate student working with Dr. Jim Dole, gave an oral presentation of his research results at the Student Research Symposium. John also presented his work via poster at the Behavioral Ecology Conference in San Francisco. The title of his paper was "Effects of cover on perceived predation risk in fish." Three graduate students in marine biology presented their work at the Western Society of Naturalists in San Diego. Traci Prude, who works with Dr. Peter Edmunds, gave a poster on the interaction between small corals and algal turf . Amy McClean, one of Dr. Larry Allen's students, presented a poster on patterns of settlement in a temperate reef fish, Paralabrax clathrafus. Hannah Stewart, a student of Dr. Robert Carpenter, was honored with a Best Student Paper Award for her presentation on the interaction of algal morphology with water flow and the resulting effects on algal metabolism. Other Biology students who attended the meeting were Jason Bram, Carol Phalen, Greg Benavides, Clarence Gillett, Maiko Kasuya, Denise Weisman, Nick Haring, Carla Zilberberg, Josh Idjadi, Steve Vollmer, and Kim Whiteside. Graduate students Agata Pikula, Chris Hernandez, and Kun Do Rhee from Dr. Randy Cohen's lab gave research presentations at the 28th Annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Los Angeles. The topic of their study was neurodegeneration in a spastic rat model. Dr. Randy Cohen's undergraduate student, Huong Can, participated in the National Minority Research Symposium in New York City where she presented her work on cockroach feeding behavior. At the Student Research Symposium, first place for the best student poster presentation by a graduate student went to one of Dr. Peter Edmunds' students, Carla Zilberberg. The award was accompanied by $125. Her paper was entitled "Intraspecific competition in small corals: patterns and processes of interactions and their relationship to overall community structure." Two students working with Dr. Paul Wilson won prizes in the Student Research Symposium; both awards included a $75 prize. Michael Valenzuela won second place for an undergraduate poster for his study on "Three naturally occurring Penstemon hybrids." Jim Dilley's poster, entitled "Is the evolution of mariposa lilies driven by their pollinators?" took second place in the graduate division. Microbiology graduate students Patricia Medina and Zillehuma Majid presented a poster at the Student Research Symposium. Their poster was entitled "New, Safe, and Effective Technique for Identification of Gelatin Hydrolysis." Both students work under the direction of Dr. Larry Baresi. Three of Dr. Paul Tomasek's graduate students have recently presented their work. Andra Dumitrescu's poster entitled "Sequencing and characterization of the carbofuran hydrolase (mcd) gene" was presented at the 11th Annual CSU Biotechnology Symposium in Pomona. The symposium was sponsored by the CSU Program for Education and Research in Biotechnology (CSUPERB). Joyce Merritt also gave a poster presentation at the CSUPERB Symposium. Her paper was on "Cloning of the 3,4-dihydroxyxanthone dioxygenase gene from the xanthone degrading Arthrobacter sp. strain GFB100." Karen Kesterson gave an oral presentation on "A rapid PCR method to detect Flexibacter maritimus in marine aquaculture" at the Annual Meeting of the Southern California Branch, American Society for Microbiology in Irvine. Both Joyce and Karen also presented their work at the Student Research Symposium where Karen was awarded second place and a prize of $75 for an oral paper in the Science and Mathematics category.