Research Showcase
If it's winter break, you know that Kenyon biology and neuroscience students are topping off their holiday with research presentations at one of the world's major professional conferences. The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) holds its annual meeting every January, and Kenyon students regularly present posters there together with their professors.
This year, four students joined three professors at the January 3-7 meeting in San Francisco. The meeting, which typically brings together nearly two thousand professional scientists and graduate students from around the world, showcases research in fields ranging from cellular and molecular biology, to ecology, to evolutionary biology.
Accompanying the students were Kenyon professors Haruhiko Itagaki, Robert Mauck, and Jennifer Olson. The students were:
Anna "Andie" Asimes '13, a neuroscience major, with minors in both biology and anthropology, from North Royalton, Ohio. She presented a poster titled "The behavioral and neurological effects of hypoxia during the embryonic development of domestic chicks." The research involves the effect of oxygen deprivation during embryonic development on cognitive ability and brain structure. Her co-author is former Kenyon professor Timothy Roth.
Claire O'Connell '13, a biology major from Peculiar, Missouri. Her poster was titled "The heat is on: air temperature, burrow temperature, and reproductive success in a long-lived seabird. With global warming increasing the summer temperatures at seabird breeding colonies in the North Atlantic, O'Connell and her co-researchers examined the effect of air temperature on the reproduction of Leach's storm petrel, a seabird that produces a single offspring per breeding season. Her co-authors included Mauck, of Kenyon's biology faculty, and researchers from Bowdoin College.
Emily Rose '14, a neuroscience major from Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. She presented a poster called "Immunocytochemical localization of the amino acid co-transporter KAAT1 and neuromodulators in the midgut of larval Manduca sexta." The study involves an important transport protein in the tobacco hornworm, a larval moth that is frequently used in neuroscience research because of its large size and easily accessible nervous system. Her co-authors were fellow Kenyon student Sanderlin, Kenyon professors Itagaki and Christopher Gillen, and former Kenyon student Aaron Yeoh '12.
Allen Sanderlin '15, a neuroscience major from Dublin, Ohio. Sanderlin co-authored the poster on Manduca sexta, noted above.