Grad News Forum

A number of Dartmouth students, faculty and staff will be celebrating the holidays far from home, in fact, just about as far from home as you can get, unless you’re a penguin.

Starting around Antarctica Day on December 1–which celebrates the signing of the international treaty in 1959 that preserves Antarctica as a place for research and peaceful purposes–and continuing well past Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years, and even Martin Luther King Day, Dartmouth researchers will be living and working “on the ice,” the nickname for the most uninhabitable continent on earth. But the only continent with no permanent residents also has a lot of visitors, many of them researchers.

“The opportunity to work in Antarctica is a life-changing experience, and many first-timers catch ‘polar fever’ and head South year after year,” says Myers Family Professor Ross Virginia, an ecologist who has been working in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys since 1989, and even has an Antarctic geological feature named after him–Virginia Valley (see inset). In a few weeks he’ll be leaving for Antarctica as will earth sciences professor Bob Hawley, Linda Morris, Education Program Director for the Ice Drilling Program Office at Thayer, and Ruth Heindel, an earth sciences graduate fellow in Dartmouth’s NSF-funded IGERT program in polar environmental change.

For full article go to the Dickey Center online.

With the last group of fellows arriving on campus this fall, one might think things are winding down for Dartmouth’s IGERT program. But in reality, research and collaboration are starting to truly cook now that all of the fellows are on campus.

IGERT students and faculty members are seen on their research trip near the west coast of Greenland. (Photo by Alexandra Giese)

“We’re really starting to move rapidly,” says Ross Virginia, the Myers Family Professor of Environmental Science and the director of Dartmouth’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program. As IGERT connects research to real world problems, Virginia says, “we’re trying to communicate science in insightful and meaningful ways.”

The program, which studies polar environmental change and supports Arctic research, is funded by a $3 million National Science Foundation grant. Since 2010, the program has facilitated collaboration across departments, conducted research in Greenland, and talked about climate change with diverse audiences—starting a conversation that’s expected to last for years.

IGERT provides two years of funding for PhD students at $30,000 per year. There are a total of 24 fellows—from the fields of engineering, ecology and evolutionary biology, and earth sciences—that connect through IGERT while working toward degrees in their home departments. Fellows take two IGERT core courses, which are taught by professors from different disciplines, and a five-week summer research trip to Greenland that serves as a capstone experience during their first year.

For full article, go to Dartmouth Now

Lilian in her famous pink labcoat.

The Graduate Forum is delighted to announce that Lilian Kabeche has been awarded the Copenhaver-Thomas Fellowship. Last year, Lilian made her debut on the Forum in her now famous pink lab coat. Now a fifth-year bio-chemistry PhD student, Lilian has seemingly unparalleled energy and enthusiasm for science and research. Speaking about the incredible moments during her time at Dartmouth, Lillian gave us insight into what drives her and what makes science so exciting for her:

“That moment, the moment in life you get to know something that no-one else knows, it’s amazing! It’s amazing!”

Lilian completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Miami in Microbiology. Wanting to continue her education, she looked at a number of PhD programs, but fell in love with Dartmouth and Hanover. For Lilian, Dartmouth was love at first sight, and leaving Hanover will be a tough task for this graduate student.

After a successful application to the MCB program, Lilian went to see a talk by Professor Duane Compton on chromosomes and from that moment decided that that was the research focus for her. This talk was the beginning of a successful working relationship that would see the two publish together and lead Lilian to the fellowship.

One of the many things that Lilian has enjoyed during her time at Dartmouth is the level of support that graduate students get. “Everyone wants you to succeed,” she explained. An integral element of this success is securing solid funding. So, Professor Compton nominated her for the Copenhaver-Thomas fellowship. This fellowship allows for greater freedom and flexibility for research, and there are far fewer concerns regarding getting funding for conferences and other auxiliary activities. “Its always nice to be valued” she continued, “to have people to value you at the point of providing funding for your work”. The fellowship is a testament to this support and will allow her to make the most of the rest of her time here.

When not being awarded fellowships, Lilian’s favorite activity in Hanover is getting Kettle Corn from the farmers market. She also enjoys snowboarding come the winter term. Congratulations again Lilian!

Article by Dan Durcan

Photo by Erin O’Flaherty