School of Biology and Ecology

Four people affiliated with UMaine are among the presenters on March 20 at the Bangor Arts Exchange, including SBE  Assistant Professor Danielle Levesque and Postdoctoral Research Associate Magdalena Blaszkiewicz. More on this at UMaine News.  

Listen to The Maine Question podcast, as Associate Professor Jacquelyn Gill discusses how and why some species have gone extinct while others have survived and what it means for how we and our planet adapt to the rapidly changing world we find ourselves in.

Assistant Professor Jared Talbot has been nominated for the Chi-Bin Chien Award, the new investigator award for the International Zebrafish Society. The award recognizes outstanding graduate students, postdoctoral trainees, or recently-appointed faculty members from any country who have made significant contributions to the field of zebrafish research and have exhibited the generosity and openness that […]

Please join us to support NSFA and learn about some of the research graduate students are doing, tomorrow (Wednesday, February 26) 10 am – 2 pm in 57 Stodder Hall, here at UMaine: 2020 Graduate Student Research Awards Competition Flyer

March 5 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm, Fogler Library Classroom I or via Zoom Join faculty and graduate students from across disciplines to discuss what to consider when publishing, what to watch out for, who to consult in the process, how to respond to reviews, and tips for reaching audiences and gaining visibility of one’s work. […]

Jacquelyn Gill, a University of Maine paleoecologist, will explore fern resilience with an all-female research team that includes scientists from the University of Florida (lead institution), University of Wyoming, University of California Santa Cruz, and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Read more on this story in UMaine News.

  The SBE Spring 2020 Seminar Series is now available to view! Please visit the SBE Seminars page for more information.  

Through the month of December, Ana had the privilege of working with Dr. Frank van Breukelen and his lab at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, studying tenrecs. Read more about her lab exchange here.

University of Maine professor of biological sciences Brian McGill, whose research focuses on modeling large-scale ecology and global change, has been named one of the 2019 Highly Cited Researchers worldwide, according to the Web of Science Group. Read the full story here.

Three creative ornament contest entries graced this year’s SBE Holiday Tree in Murray Hall. Entries had to be created only out of materials available in each team’s lab. Danielle Levesque’s lab had the winning ornament with their flying squirrel trap. They also put a homemade flying squirrel sugar cookie on the tree. This one was […]

SBE’s own Jasmine Saros was recently named a Fellow by the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.  She was named Fellow due to her dedicated work in “[reconstructing] past environmental conditions in lakes,” and her “contributions to the association and to aquatic sciences.”  You can read more here! Published December 13, 2019.

The National Science Foundation EPSCoR recently awarded the University of Maine and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences (along with other collaborators and organizations) a $20 million grant to help fund the Maine Environmental DNA Initiative (or Maine-eDNA).  Maine-eDNA hopes to position Maine as “a national leader in the understanding and sustainable use of coastal ecosystems,” […]

Ecology and Environmental Sciences Ph. D student, Ana Breit, is currently in Borneo for the summer to study how small tropical mammals regulate their body temperature.  Her research hopes to “inform people about the physiology of these animals” for use in models on how climate change could affect them.  You can read more about Breit […]

The 2019 School of Biology and Ecology student award recipients have been posted.  You can find the awardees and scholarship recipients here! Published June 24, 2019.

SBE faculty, Kristy Townsend and Jasmine Saros, were awarded Faculty Mentor Impact Awards this May for their work in mentoring students in and out of class and lab time.  You can read about the other winners here. Published June 14, 2019.

Biology undergrad, Ana Eliza Souza Cunha, was recently named the University of Maine salutatorian and Outstanding Graduating Student in the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture.  You can read more about Souza Cunha, her work, and her accomplishments on the University of Maine’s blog here. Published May 7th, 2019.

UMaine undergraduate Courtney Hatton will be graduating this May after 11 years of obstacles in her way to her degree.  Despite being confronted with years of hardship as she worked to earn her degree in biology, she persevered to achieve her academic goals.  You can read her full story here. Published April 19, 2019.

Dr. Kate Ruskin – lecturer in Ecology and Environmental Sciences – has been awarded a fellowship to conduct research in Acadia National Park by the Second Century Stewardship for 2019.  You can find more information about this award here. Published April 19, 2019.

Congratulations to Andrei Alyokhin and Frank Drummond!  Alyokhin and Drummond both received prestigious awards from the Entomological Society of America.  Alyokhin was awarded the Entomological Society of America, Eastern Branch Distinguished Award in Extension.  Drummond was awarded the Entomological Society of America, Eastern Branch Distinguished Award for Teaching.  These awards are given to entomologists who […]

UMaine’s Brian Olsen recently testified during the debate over the specific chickadee that should be Maine’s official state bird – a heated debate over the Black Capped Chickadee or the Boreal Chickadee.  You can listen to piece, or read the transcript here! Published March 1, 2019.