Bernie received $1,000 from Sigma Xi on a project looking at the effect of the larval environment on post-metamorphic behavior in wood frogs. Congratulations, Bernie!

Link to the letter of support:

ShutDownSTEM-WSU-letter

The Crespi lab will be part of this effort–it will be the collective contribution of all labs and organizations at Washington State University to make this pledge a reality.

In a project lead by graduate student Bernie Traversari, we were able to work with Washington Department Fish and Wildlife and the Oregon Zoo, raised Northern leopard frog tadpoles at our Airport Gardens research site and released almost 200 recently metamorphosed frogs at the Columbia Wildlife Preserve. This is a part of a reintroduction program to sustain a new population of Northern leopard frogs in Washington, where it is locally endangered. Read more about the releases event that occurred this summer.

We are excited to work with Dr. Myra Hughey, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Vassar College to investigate how salinity alters skin microbial communities and whether this contributes to a change in susceptibility to ranavirus infections experienced by wood frog larvae in high salinity ponds. We received an NSF Research Opportunity Award to fund both field and experimental studies and an undergraduate researcher to address this question, and probe how the microbial community relates to immune responses to ranavirus infections. We will also work with Dr. Robin Warne at Southern Illinois University to look at intestinal microbiome interactions as well.

Eric Navarro was one of 117 graduate and undergraduate student presentation winners (from more than 1000 presentations) at the National Diversity in STEM Conference sponsored by the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah Oct. 19-21. His poster was titled, “Retention of learning through life stages in Xenopus laevis.” Eric is also an undergraduate McNair Scholar at WSU.

See article about Eric at:

https://sbs.wsu.edu/eric-navarro-is-named-a-winner-at-the-sacnas-conference/

Congratulations, Eric!

For more information: http://sacnas.org/2017/10/26/sacnas-awards-117-graduate-and-undergraduate-students-for-their-research-presentations-at-2017-sacnas/

SACNAS is an inclusive organization dedicated to fostering the success of Chicano/Hispanic and Native American scientists from college students to professionals in attaining advanced degrees, careers, and position of leadership in STEM.

Emily will be working with Dr. Louise Rollins-Smith on a project looking at climate change and chytrid fungus infection in multiple species of amphibians

Emily successfully defended her doctoral dissertation, titled ” Crossroads of stress and disease: Influence of road run-off on amphibian disease susceptibility.”

Congratulations Emily!!!