The Salem State Biologist Spring 2022 by Salem State University

THE SALEM STATE BIOLOGIST SPRING 2022

THE SALEM STATE BIOLOGIST News from our Graduating Students

Reflections on an Internship

Student Research Propels Student

Our BioSociety is Back!

43rd Darwin Festival Connecting Across the Decades 3 What About Our Alumni?

Well Done NMT Graduates!

Biology Emerging from COVID-19

Exciting Academic News!

SACNAS Chapter Emerging!

Student Input and Hardwork = Exciting New Course! 6 Microbiology CuREs

Publications by Professors

Student Awards and Scholarships

Faculty and Student Presentations

Seen Around Biology

The biology department at Salem State University seeks to foster in its students an understanding of the human organism as an interactive member of an enormous and diverse biological community.

News from our Graduating Students SON NGUYEN

What are your current feelings/emotions about graduating? I am currently feeling excited and accomplished! It has been 10 years since I’ve gotten my associate’s degree but to finally say I am getting a bachelor’s degree at SSU is a whole other feat. What is a highlight from your degree at SSU? The highlight of my degree at SSU is that I was able to get my degree by doing majority of the work online due to COVID-19. If this wasn’t available, I would not have been able to get my degree in the two years I attended SSU. What is a lowlight from your degree at SSU? I do not have any major lowlight from my degree at SSU. I came in with a plan and just stayed on the path of that plan with sheer determination and perseverance. Maybe the only lowlight for me was juggling time with family, work, and school. Due to my busy schedule, I usually stayed up to finish my assignments but that was in part due to what I have going on outside of school. SSU’s workload was difficult but forgiving at times where I found myself able to rest and rejuvenate after completing important projects. What are your immediate short term (1-3 years) goals after graduation? For the first year after graduation, I am shifting focus to my career. I am still managing a laboratory team and collaborating with brilliant lab scientists, nurses, and doctors so it is only up from here. In years two and three I may consider going after a graduate degree it just depends if I want to not sleep again for another two years. What are your current feelings/emotions about graduating? I have mixed feelings about graduating. There are some feelings of excitement, pride, and anticipation. I am the first generation to graduate, so it is a big achievement for my family and me. I am looking forward to crossing the stage and moving on to the real world. However, I am nervous because I am not sure what my next step will be, and the challenges I will be facing. What is a highlight from your degree at SSU? My biggest highlight is graduating this year. As a biology major, I am proud of myself and all the hard work I put in toward my degree. It took a lot of dedication and perseverance to achieve a degree. Another one of my highlights is developing a close relationship with my advisor Lynn Fletcher who is also my professor. I am grateful and appreciative of all her hard work and guidance toward my degree. What is a lowlight from your degree at SSU? Most of my classes were enjoyable, but the lowlight was the challenges I faced while taking some of my classes. This included the lack of sleep I experienced while working and studying, and the stress I endured. What are your immediate short term (1-3 years) goals after graduation? My short-term goal is applying to physician assistant (PA) school. After I complete PA school, I will be applying for a job to start my career as a physician assistant.

THE SALEM STATE BIOLOGIST SPRING 2022

REFLECTIONS ON AN INTERNSHIP

STUDENT RESEARCH PROPELS STUDENT, SYDNEY ADDORISIO, TO PHD PROGRAM AT TUFTS UNIVERSITY! My name is Sydney Addorisio and I graduated from Salem State in December of 2021 with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology, a minor in chemistry, and a Commonwealth Honors Scholar. Since graduating I have been working as a co-op at Biogen and will be in that role until the end of July. After taking a month off, I will be starting at Tufts University in September of 2022 to pursue a PhD in biology. I will be completing my PhD studies in the lab of Dr. Sergei Mirkin where of the goal of the lab, in the words of Dr. Mirkin, is to “understand the mechanisms of repeat expansions that are responsible for over 50 hereditary diseases in humans. In this research, we employ two experimental systems: yeast and cultured human cells.” I am overjoyed to be starting this next chapter in my life and am grateful to Salem State for the experiences that got me to this point.

Kamila De Andrade

My name is Kamila De Andrade, and I am a third-year student at SSU studying Biology. Last summer, I was hired for an internship at a company called Apic Bio, a small biotech startup in Cambridge. This was my first time working a job in my field of interest. Apic is a company that focuses on finding treatments for rare genetic diseases, and while there, I joined their Neuroscience team to focus on making progress to find a gene therapy for ALS. At the time, I did not know what to expect going into it. I also was still not sure of where I fit into the vast field of Biology, which made me nervous among scientists who were already decided and passionate about their work. But, throughout the internship, I was introduced to a variety of lab procedures, some of which I had never heard of before! I got the chance to discover what I enjoyed working on most and what I did not enjoy as much. I also got to meet a variety of different scientists and learn about their different career paths that had brought them to where they were. From this experience, I was able to narrow down a bit more of what I am looking for in my career and learn about the choices I have going forward. I also developed important lab skills that have been useful in the more advanced Bio classes I have taken since and will continue to be useful in the future. It was a very rewarding experience that has shaped my perspectives in many ways!

OUR BIOSOCIETY IS BACK! Since lying dormant for the past two years, the Biology Society of Salem State is back up and running. With such little time, since the new start, our society has been able to run many successful meetings and events since April. With five new e-board members, and many incoming students showing much interest, we’ve been able to host meetings every Wednesday. Along with weekly agendas, the Biology Society has also participated in many events, such as: a Beach Clean-Up, Tabling at Accepted Students Day, and our latest being the City Nature Challenge. Our room is now available again for all the members to study, come together, and share ideas in a bit of a more informal and comfortable setting compared to a standard classroom. As of right now, we are in the process of getting full recognition from the university. Before the next semester in the fall of 2022, we should be fully recognized. Going further, our organization has ambitious plans in the works for next year. Some of the plans we hope to conclude are CPR training, Scuba certifications, T-shirt contest, nominating a Darwin Festival speaker, and working around further efficient ways to help improve the environment along the Salem State community. We are beyond grateful for every faculty member within the Biology Department for all of their exceeded help and enthusiasm with the restarted and upcoming Biology Society. We hope to continue our recent success into the future years of Salem State and all of the students and faculty leaving a lasting legacy. Morelia MorelDiaz

The BioSociety beach cleanup during Earth Days.

The newly updated Biology Society office in Meier 533.

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43rd DARWIN FESTIVAL CONNECTING ACROSS THE DECADES Our 43rd Darwin Festival provided a diverse range of talks and streaming videos, again all remote due to the pandemic. While we all prefer the opportunity to listen and chat to our speakers in-person, the webinar format certainly has its benefits. If you missed some of the webinars please go to salemstate.edu/darwinfestival. If you click on the talk title, you will be able to watch the video recording. Our 43rd Festival welcomed a dozen guest speakers from coast-to-coast and across the seas to the Galapagos Islands! Talks covered the breadth of biology from using genomics to explore marine biodiversity, to how bacterial cells communicate, to how some FDA approved drugs cause a specific form of mutation in the model organism, E.coli. Our webinars were attended by almost 1,800 participants, joining us from 20 states and the District of Columbia, as well as six countries, including the United Kingdom and Brazil. Each year, the Friday of the festival is devoted to celebrating our Biology alumni. This year we were exceedingly fortunate to have three alumni participate in the program, covering over 30 years! Our youngest alumna was Ms. Sydney Addorisio (2021), who joined our own Dr. Laura Laranjo to give an absorbing talk on template-switch mutagenesis in the bacterium E.coli, and how this is caused by certain FDA approved drugs. Their talk was preceded by an important and very interesting talk on the role of ‘big data’ in tracking and helping to conserve biodiversity by alumna, Dr. Tara Pelletier (2002). The whole Friday Alumni Day program was anchored by Mr. Peter Shearstone (1989), who, through his company, ThermoFisher Scientific, has been exceedingly generous in providing financial support for the Darwin Festival for the next five years.

WHAT ABOUT OUR ALUMNI?

SYDNEY ADDORISIO

PETER SHEARSTONE

TARA PELLETIER IN THE FIELD Alumni Day provided a thoroughly enjoyable and fitting end to our 43rd Festival, and revealed just how important our Biology alumni are, and how grateful we are to them!

Amanda Logan (2014)

EDISSON NARANJO-MEJIA (2016)

In December of 2014, I graduated with a BS in Biology and a concentration in Marine Biology. I was ready to graduate from undergrad, having worked my butt off with summer classes to graduate in 3 1/2 years! But I also knew myself; if I didn’t start graduate school right away, it wasn’t going to happen. (Side note, tons of people work then go back to pursue a higher degree!) So I moved to Maine and started graduate school several months later; perusing a Masters in Marine Science at UNE. It was a fulfilling and intense two years of research and lab work before graduating and moving back to the Northshore.

Since graduating from Salem State University in 2016, I have earned a masters in exercise physiology at Northeastern University in 2019 as well as a masters of physician assistant studies at MGH Institute of Health Professions in 2021. After graduation, I worked as an emergency department technician at Lowell General Hospital through the pandemic and up until I accepted my first position as a PA. I am currently a boardcertified physician assistant in nephrology with the Department of Veterans Affairs in the kidney transplant division. I am now living in Philadelphia with my wife, our two month old son and our 5 year old chocolate lab!

Naturally, having freshly graduated with my Marine Science degree, you’d expect that I would work in a marine biology related job. I don’t. I pivoted to the biotech industry. I’ve worked for a Swedish company and travelled to Sweden twice for work, gaining great molecular biology knowledge! Then, I worked as a fungal biologist, managing a location and team of six where we cultured SO MANY fungal strains! And now, I work for a company doing CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing and small molecule discovery, and I love it. I think I’ll end this will a corny inspirational thought… It doesn’t matter if you end up in the field of your college major or not. There is no “right” way to find a job you enjoy!

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EMANUEL CHAVECO (2018) Though it has been only four years since my time at Salem State University, it feels as though it was a completely different lifetime. Even back then I eagerly awaited the next stage of my life, when I could apply the education I was receiving to my field of choice. Finally being on that other side feels like a full circle moment. In the time since graduating I have had the enriching opportunity to work for a Biopharmaceutical company as a Manufacturing Associate. I’ll admit, I was nervous at the beginning. I was under the impression that they would expect you to remember everything you had just learned. This could not be further from the case, even after graduating you never fully stop learning. Working in biotech I have been able to apply a lot of the technical and critical thinking skills I had learned, but I was also able to learn a lot about the business aspects of the industry, which I was not expecting. When you’re in college it can be easy to make assumptions of what you think things will be like once you graduate, but if you allow yourself to be open minded then no matter what the reality might be, you can turn into a worthwhile experience. Fregeau, resulting in many fond memories on the water. I also conducted an independent research project with Dr. Paul Kelly that I presented for the Mass Audubon Society. We looked at how well cover boards could be used in contrast to natural cover (rocks and logs) to monitor salamander biodiversity.

TARA PELLETIER (rear) with Student Camryn Williford at RadfordUniversity (2002)

My name is Dr. Tara Pelletier – sites.google. com/site/taraapelletier/. I graduated from Salem State College (when it wasn’t yet University) in 2002. During my time at SSC I participated in a lot of things and am so grateful I decided on becoming a Biology major my freshman year. I spent several years working at the Cat Cove Marine Lab with Drs. Joe Buttner and Mark

Since then I have done a lot of things with my biology degree! I spent several summers working for MA Mosquito Control with another biology professor, Dr. Cuebas-Incle. And after some other odd jobs, like working at a ski resort or Eastern Mountain Sports, I got a full time job working for Charles River Laboratories as a lab tech. About a year later, I realized that wasn’t the kind of work I was interested in, so I moved across the country to Portland OR and worked as a vet tech. After another year, I realized I wanted to do something more interesting within biology so I applied for graduate school. I got my MS in Biology from Portland State University studying salamanders again! I explored the distribution of genetic variation in Plethodon vehiculum, to understand the evolutionary processes that shaped the geographic distribution of this species. This is when I knew, without a doubt, that I wanted to be an evolutionary biologist. I started working on my PhD at Louisiana State

University in 2009. The lab that I was a part of moved to Ohio State University about half-way through my dissertation work and I graduated from OSU in 2015. This is the year I finally became an adult (I also got married and had a baby!). My dissertation work used western Plethodon salamanders (yay salamanders!) as a model system in phylogeography. Phylogeography explores the geographic distribution of genetic variation to understand the evolutionary processes that shape biodiversity patterns and species boundaries. After that I spent a couple more years at OSU teaching and doing research. Now I am an assistant professor at Radford University is southwest Virginia and I love my job! I teach courses such as genetics, evolution, and bioinformatics. Research in my lab uses both empirical and theoretical approaches to answer questions in ecology and evolution. We like to combine different types of data in new ways and take a data science approach to asking classic questions about evolution (this means I spend a lot of time on methods development). Even though I spend most of my time in front of a computer writing and coding these days, I do still get out in the field and assist my research students in the lab, and I hike and bike as much as I can.

THEA MILLER-MELANCON (2017) I started working full time in a molecular biology lab just two days after SSU commencement and quickly found out that working with mice was not for me! I transitioned into clinical research after about a year and completed a post baccalaureate fellowship at New England Baptist Hospital where I worked on a number of different projects revolving around total joint arthroplasty. After my fellowship, I transitioned into my role as an oncology clinical research coordinator at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center where I have spent the last 2.5 years working with an amazing team and expanding the genitourinary oncology research offerings. Thanks to the support of this incredible team, I just accepted a Project Associate position with the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium at Memorial Sloan Kettering where I will help run two early phase international clinical trials. 4

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WELL DONE NMT (NUCLEAR MEDICINE TECHNOLOGY) GRADUATES! Congratulations to the Nuclear Medicine Technology Graduates class of 2022. The NMT students have had an incredible year during their clinical education at area hospitals learning the skills to become a certified Nuclear Medicine Technologist. The SSU NMT Program has continued to grow the past few years adding clinical affiliations including Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and the Mass General Brigham Outpatient center in Danvers. The additional locations gives the NMT students many opportunities in the Nuclear Medicine field including learning General Nuclear Medicine, PET/CT imaging, and Cardiac imaging. All four students have accepted fulltime jobs prior to graduating and are starting their new careers in June! Good luck NMT Students in your new careers!! Professor Melinda Walker NMT Clinical Director NMT 2022 GRADUATES BACK ROW: ALEX FAVA. FRONT ROW LEFT TO RIGHT: ABBY CLINE, WILKENSON PIERRE, AND TYLER DEVINE.

EXCITING ACADEMIC NEWS!

BIORIG Biology Research Interest Group Promoting active engagement in science is the focus of the new Biology Research Interest Group (BIO RIG). It began in September 2021 as an opportunity for anyone to learn about and support SSU undergraduate science research. BIO RIG is a forum for students with no research experience to learn what research is and find out about on and off campus research and internship opportunities. It is a place for students working on research projects with SSU faculty to practice presenting their own research results. Students and faculty beginning research projects can get feedback on their ideas and anyone interested in the process of science can come for informal conversation about the excitement of DOING science. It is also an opportunity for students to share their internship experiences and career plans. Recordings of several meetings from BIO RIG’s first year are available online (salemstate.instructure. com/courses/1166744/pages/bio-rig-ssus-biology-undergraduate-research-interest-group). These include Dr. Laranjo talking about the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program and about her work to form a chapter of SACNAS, Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, Dr. Sprenkle discussing antibiotic discovery in her Tiny Earth course-based undergraduate experience, and students who have successfully applied for internships sharing their ‘tips and tricks’ for the internship application process. Planning for fall semester is actively underway. If you would like to get involved or support the work of BIO RIG, please contact Jason Brown (jbrown2@salemstate.edu), Laura Laranjo (llaranjo@salemstate.edu), or Tracy Ware (tware@salemstate.edu). Dr. Jason Brown

BIOLOGY EMERGING FROM COVID-19 It has been a long two years and I was relieved to read Dr. Anthony Fauci being quoted as saying that the USA seems to be transitioning out of the ‘explosive’ pandemic phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. That said all humanity has been extremely challenged in so many ways since the first lockdowns of March 2020. Your professors in the Biology Department had to quickly adjust to the Zoom format and quite a number continued to teach labs and seminars in person throughout the pandemic. Life for everyone at Salem State has been difficult and we are extremely proud of our graduating Seniors, who have had to complete the majority of their studies (four and a half semesters) during a pandemic. Seventythree graduated this past Saturday, May 21, 2022. Their resilience and determination are inspirational to all of us professors and, not to sound trite, we are very proud of what they have achieved. You will have read some of their stories earlier in this newsletter. That said, as an educator and a marine biologist, our department was extremely disheartened when the University decided to close our Cat Cove Marine Laboratory in August 2021. Cat Cove has been a major part of the Biology Department since 1999 and allowed many students with a focus in Marine Biology and Aquaculture to master the knowledge and skills required in those fields. In addition, continuing enrollment challenges in higher education as well as the unexpected closing of Meier Hall for several weeks at the end of the Spring 2022 semester, certainly added more challenges. Despite this, the resilience and creativity that has and is a hallmark of providing higher education during the pandemic, are now coming into play as all in the Biology Department strive to continue providing a quality education for our students! Dr. Ryan Fisher

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SACNAS Chapter Emerging!

STUDENT INPUT + HARD WORK = EXCITING NEW COURSE!

The Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in STEM (SACNAS) – sacnas.org is a STEM professional society dedicated to the idea that our workforce should reflect the diversity of our population. SACNAS was founded as an organization for fostering the success of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans, from college students to professionals, in attaining advanced degrees, careers, and positions of leadership in STEM. While they continue this focus, SACNAS is an inclusive organization dedicated to a vision of TRUE Diversity in STEM, where the STEM workforce reflects the diversity of the population. SACNAS is open to the entire STEM community, and the following are some of the topics under which people have presented at the national conference: Biomedical and Health Sciences, Computer and Information Science, Engineering, Geoscience, Life Sciences, Materials Research, Math, Physics, Psychology, Social Sciences, and Traditional Knowledge. I have participated in regional and national conferences where I presented my research, attended multiple mentorship sessions as well as mentored a few, and expanded my network to various schools, industries, and in different communities. My research students (past and present) are already involved with SACNAS, and we are recruiting students who want to start a chapter for our school. If you are interested in knowing more about SACNAS, please email me at llaranjo@salemstate.edu

Thanks to motivated students taking a chance, this semester was the inaugural run of our new BIO 404 Genetics of Human Disease. In fact, this course was developed with the help of students. In 2019, as we were phasing out BIO 402 Genetics and phasing in BIO 217 General Genetics, Marina Tarantino ’20) conducted an education research project with Drs. Laranjo and Brown to develop the concept for a new advanced genetics course. It quickly became clear that the focus should be on human genetics and student surveys even told us the most popular course title. After two years of planning and a semester of hard work, the students and Dr. Brown made it through and learned a lot. Students learned about the complexity of genetic and epigenetic disease mechanisms and inheritance patterns. They studied modern techniques in human genetics and took deeper dives into cancer and Dr. Brown’s specialty, the ciliopathies. They also thought about the bioethics of disease genetics, diagnostics, and treatment. Students worked with genetic databases and online tools used by modern human geneticists while collaborating on two bioinformatics case studies. A capstone experience put students in the place of working geneticists, allowing them to choose between writing a grant proposal for experiments that they designed or answering a question of their own using bioinformatics tools they had learned. Dr. Brown will pass on what he learned to Dr. Laranjo who plans to offer BIO 404 next spring.

Dr. Laura Laranjo

Drs. Jason Brown and Laura Laranjo

Microbiology CuREs (Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences) Continue in Salem State University Biology Department. Figure 1. Colony morphology (left) and cell morphology (right, in a Gram stain, 1000X) of one of the antibiotic producing bacteria found this year in BIO 304.

In BIO 304 Microbiology and Its Applications, the Tiny Earth curriculum continues to provide pre-nursing and STEM majors with the opportunity to be microbe hunters, and isolate antibiotic-producing bacteria from our local soil to combat the growing threat of antimicrobial resistant infection. Students learn basic microbiology techniques which allow them to grow potential antibiotic producers in the lab and test them for drug activity against other bacteria and even eukaryotic cells as potential anti-cancer therapeutics. Students also learn about the soil crisis and how poor agricultural management practices worldwide decrease soil microbiome diversity that are threatening our ability to feed the planet. Finally, the Tiny Earth curriculum embraces AJEDI teaching (Anti-racism, Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) by recognizing the soil that we live upon was unwillingly ceded to us by Indigenous peoples, and explores contribution to science by all people, not just ‘dead white guys’ (as Prof. Sprenkle refers to them!). Students also may continue to follow their isolates in directed studies with Professor Sprenkle like Krissy Marashio ’22, Kathy Murphy Research Award winner and Honors graduate. See her poster in MH outside the micro lab.

THE SALEM STATE BIOLOGIST SPRING 2022

Microbiology CuREs (cont.)

In BIO 132 L22 SEA-PHAGES phage discovery laboratory, and BIO 318 Virology and Bioinformatics, students also hunt for microbes and participate in authentic discovery, analysis, and communication of their results in the SEA-PHAGES program sponsored by HHMI (Howard Hughes Medical Institute). In the discovery laboratory, students hunt for viruses that infect bacteria (also called phages), purify, amplify, characterize, and archive their isolates. Their isolates are also made available to the public through the Actinobacteriophage Database at phagesdb.org. Two unique isolates are sent for full genome sequencing, and the data that comes back is analyzed and annotated by students in BIO 318, then presented at the SEA-PHAGES symposium. This year’s symposium featured Dr. Kim Seed from UC Berkeley and a fascinating discussion of Vibrio cholerae phage and unique intracellular mobile genetic elements of the bacterium that causes cholera that defend against virus invasion, like the CRISPR system. The students in the class communicated their genome annotations in a s cientific poster to their peers at the symposium through the virtual platform Gather. Their posters can also be seen in the MH hallways, and their GenBank genome annotation authorship will be published by the end of the calendar year after going through scientific review by the SEA-PHAGES faculty quality control team. Dr. Amy Sprenkle

Figure 2. Student in the biosafety cabinet preparing TEM grids of a bacteriophage.

Figure 3. Plaque morphology (left) and Phage morphology (right – TEM) of BabyDaisy, one of the actinobacteriophages presented at the 2022 SEAPHAGES Symposium.

PUBLICATIONS by Your Professors Although we spend a significant amount of time teaching, advising and serving on various committees, academic research/scholarship is still happening! Here are some examples: Dr. Thea Popolizio published a paper with colleagues on the taxonomy of a group of red algae (Rhodophyta) in Bermuda. Popolizio, T.R., Schneider, C.W., Jongbloed, W.M. Lan, C.E. 2022. Molecular Analysis Resolves the Taxonomy of the Laurencia Complex (Rhodomelaceae, Ceramiales) in Bermuda and Uncovers Novel Species of Chondrophycus and Laurenciella. Cryptogamie, Algologie 43 (1): 1-30. For the abstract see - https://bioone.org/journals/cryptogamie-algologie/volume-43/issue-1/cryptogamie-algologie2022v43a1/Molecular-AnalysisResolves-the-Taxonomy-of-the-iLaurencia-i-Complex/10.5252/cryptogamie-algologie2022v43a1.short The full paper can be read on our ‘Biology Beyond the Classroom’ pages at: https://elearning.salemstate.edu/courses/1166744/pages/faculty-publications Dr. Alan Young published a paper on the impact of green crab predation on juvenile softshell clams. Young, A. M., 2022. Effect of Predator Exclusion on Softshell Clam Mya arenaria Recruitment. Journal of Shellfish Research 41(1): 119-124. For the abstract see - https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-shellfish-research/volume-41/issue-1/035.041.0109/Effect-of-Predator-Exclusion-onSoftshell-Clam-Mya-arenaria-L/10.2983/035.041.0109.short The full paper can be read at: https://elearning.salemstate.edu/courses/1166744/pages/faculty-publications Drs. Tess Killpack and Thea Popolizio published a paper about how students can learn to conduct research remotely. Popolozio TR, Killpack TL. 2021. A Remote-Learning Framework for Student Research Projects: Using Datasets to Teach Experimental Design, Data Analysis and Science Communication. CourseSource. The full paper can be read at: https://qubeshub.org/community/groups/coursesource/publications?id=2762&v=1

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STUDENT AWARD SCHOLARSHIPS 2022 Frederick A. Meier Award: awarded to Samman Naz Alfred Borgatti Biology Scholarship: will be offered again in the fall for use in the 2022-2023 academic year. Kathy Murphy Summer Research: will be offered again in the fall for use in the 2022-2023 academic year.

SEEN AROUND BIOLOGY! Members of the Biology community have fun as can be seen in these few photos. Student Holiday Party 2006

Kathy Murphy Endowment Award: awarded to Kamila De Andrade for research of over-thecounter medications and template-switch mutations with Dr. Laura Laranjo. Patricia A. Welch Award in Botany: will be offered again in the fall for use in the 2022-2023 academic year. Alan M. Young Award: awarded to Dane Shiner for research in fish diversity in the North River with Dr. Joe Buttner.

FACULTY AND STUDENT PRESENTATIONS NEERS Spring 2022 Meeting

Sigma Xi Spring 2022 Meeting

The New England Estuarine Research Society (NEERS: newenglandestuarineresearchsociety. wildapricot.org/MeetingOverview ) has a long history with our Biology Department being founded 50 years ago at Salem State by Biology Professor Johnes K. Moore.

The North Shore Chapter of Sigma Xi comprises faculty and students from Endicott College, Gordon College and Salem State University (sites.google.com/view/northshore-sigma-xi/home)

Dr. Alan Young presented the results of his paper mentioned earlier, and the following students presented posters: A Study of Offshore Plankton Populations Comparing Surface and Deep-Water Assemblages – Cory Sharkey – Cory’s poster won the Warren Prize for Best Undergraduate Student Poster – well done Cory! Inshore and Offshore Plankton Populations and Their Impacts on Mussel Farm Health – Anastasia DiTomas Monitoring Climate Change in Coastal and Offshore Gulf of Maine – Chloe MacNeil

The February 2022 meeting was held at Salem State University. Our very own Dr. Laura Laranjo gave the keynote address: Analysis of Quasi-palindrome Template-switch Mutations after treatment with FDA-approved Drugs.

Alumni and Faculty Celebrating after Darwin Festival 2019

Presentations and posters by Biology faculty and students: Bringing TIM to Salem State: CRISPR/Cas9based Targeted Insertional Mutagenesis in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Gleidia Sauli and Jason M. Brown*, Department of Biology, Salem State University, Salem, MA. jbrown2@salemstate.edu

Commencement 2009

Seniors BBQ 2016

The winning t-shirt design for 2010 by Kelan Joshua

Biology 352 Lafayette Street Salem, Massachusetts 01970

Dr. Midge Hoovers retirement party (with Dr. Reza Hassanzadeh and professor Ted Maney)