Grad News Forum

Five Dartmouth graduate students have received prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships for 2012. The award will support their development as scientists and research into topics ranging from genetics and sea level rise to plant domestication and how creative pursuits change the brain.

For the full article go to Dartmouth Now.

Kyle Cady, a Microbiology and Immunology doctoral candidate, is this year’s Copenhaver Fellowship Recipient! His supervisor is Professor George O’Toole, a leader in the field of bacterial pathogenesis. The O’Toole lab studies biofilms—bacterial communities that can become resistant to antibiotics—and it’s Kyle’s research in this area that has earned him the fellowship.

“We study how a new bacterial small RNA regulatory pathway mediates the interaction of a virus with its host bacterium. More specifically, we are trying to understand how this small RNA pathway can control multiple surface-associated behaviors of this medically important bacterium.” Kyle explains.

With plans to defend his thesis on April 24^th, and a position lined up in Boston, Kyle is excited for the future and doesn’t plan to take any breaks from his research. He’ll soon be working at MIT, in Michael Laub’s lab, where he will be researching the signals that bacteria sense and respond to in the context of human infections. 

Asked how he felt about being selected for the award, Kyle responds, “I was very flattered and grateful that the selection committee thought so highly of our research.” 

Kyle insists that the Copenhaver award has helped him immensely in achieving his research goals. “Each piece of funding opens the door to new and exciting experiments that would otherwise not be performed. I hope every member of the Dartmouth community appreciates the generosity of philanthropists like the Thomas and Copenhaver families. Fellowships like this allow research programs to grow and prosper and can only improve Dartmouth,” says Kyle.

by Tennile Sunday

Five faculty members associated with Dartmouth’s Arts & Sciences Graduate Programs were named 2011 fellows by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

• Duane Compton, senior associate dean of research and professor of biochemistry at Dartmouth Medical School (DMS), heads a graduate research group which examines chromosome segregation during cell division.

• Russell Hughes, the Frank R. Mori Professor of Chemistry, has led a graduate research group at Dartmouth since 1976.

• Lee Lynd, the Paul E. and Joan H. Queneau Distinguished Professor in Environmental Engineering Design, conducts research on the production of energy from plant biomass at the Thayer School of Engineering.

• Jason Moore, the Third Century Professor as well as professor of genetics and of
 community and family medicine at DMS, runs a graduate research lab which studies biodefense, gene-fuction, and gene-gene and gene-environment interactions.

• George O’Toole is professor of microbiology and immunology. Professor O’Toole runs a graduate research lab which examines microbial communities known as biofilms.

For more on Dartmouth’s 2011 AAAS fellows, visit the Dartmouth Now.

Tiya Miles, 1998-99 Thurgood Marshall Dissertation fellow at Dartmouth College, is a 2011 MacArthur Fellow and has recently been featured on the MacArthur Foundation’s website.

The MacArthur Foundation describes Tiya as “… a public historian who explores the complex interrelationships between African and Cherokee people living and working in colonial America. Her studies tease evidence from census records, legal petitions, missionary reports, newsprint, and oral histories and span territories east and west in the South, before and after the Trail of Tears (1838-1839) and up to the Civil War.”

See the full article and video here.

Several Dartmouth graduate students are utilizing their scientific backgrounds to help develop the next crop of young scientists.

As National Science Foundation Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12), Dartmouth graduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are paired with teachers in local middle and high schools.

In addition to their work in area schools, GK-12 STEM fellows participate in teaching workshops through the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL).  DCAL serves as a valuable resource for graduate students and faculty alike, and fosters the development of Dartmouth’s teachers through the establishment of a collaborative educational environment.

Read the full article on Dartmouth Now.

Photo by Joseph Mehling

Mike Malloy, a Dartmouth PhD student in immunology, was the recipient of the John H. Copenhaver, Jr., and William H. Thomas, M.D., 1952 Junior Fellowship.

The Copenhaver-Thomas Fellowship is awarded each year to a student(s) in the Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) graduate program at Dartmouth who demonstrates academic excellence.  In addition to Malloy, Christen DiPetrillo, a graduate student in the lab of Dr. Elizabeth Smith, was also named a Copenhaver-Thomas Fellow.

Read the full article on the Dartmouth-Hitchcock/Dartmouth Medical School 2010 Annual Report.

photo by Mark Washburn