Catawba College students from the Catawba Sciences (The Departments of Biology, Chemistry and, Environment and Sustainability) attended and presented at the 80th Annual Meeting of the Association of Southeastern Biologists (ASB) in Memphis, Tenn. Students were accompanied by five faculty mentors, Drs. Jay Bolin, Steve Coggin, Carmony Hartwig, Erin Howard and Joe Poston, all from the Department of Biology.
A total six oral and poster presentations were given by Catawba College students and faculty. Those included:
- An Overview of the Catawba College Herbarium (CATU) Located in the Central Piedmont of North Carolina. Jessica Willis, E. Malachi Gray, Jay F. Bolin, and Michael J. Baranski
- Identification of Glomus (Glomeromycota) mycorrhizae in association with the aquatic plant Isoetes (Isoetaceae). Kory Ly, Luke Humble, Viridiana Mandujano, Karina Noyola-Alonso, Angelo Troia, and Jay Bolin
- Investigating the Effectiveness of the Antioxidant Catechin Hydrate on Artemisinin Activity in vitro. Wyatt Zander and Carmony Hartwig
- Sampling the 'Wild': Isolation of Yeast Strains from Rowan County, North Carolina. Kara Cline and Carmony Hartwig
- Using Flow Cytometry to Study Polyploidy in Quillworts (Isoetes) an Enigmatic Lycophyte Lineage. Luke Humble, Kory Ly, Karina Noyola-Alonso, Viridiana Mandujano, Peter Schafran, Carmony Hartwig, Slavko Komarnytsky, and Jay Bolin
- Teaching with Wikipedia based Writing Assignments in the Organismal Biology Classroom. Jay F. Bolin, Samantha Weald and Ian Ramjohn
The ASB meeting also included the meeting of Tri-Beta, the Undergraduate Biology Honor Society for Districts I and II, which includes Catawba College’s Tau Eta Chapter. Catawba College won several accolades at the meeting, including Honorable Mention for best BBB Poster awarded to Kara Cline and Dr. Hartwig. Kara Cline, a senior Biology student, remarked, “The award was completely unexpected and very gratifying after all the hours spent in the lab and I really want to thank my faculty mentor, Dr. Hartwig.”
Catawba College’s Tau Eta Chapter also won the award for most student delegates from District I, demonstrating Catawba’s commitment to undergraduate research. Dr. Steve Coggin was awarded the prestigious BBB District I Advisor of the Year award. Kory Ly, a sophomore double major in Biochemistry and the Environment and Sustainability, gave a poster presentation and said the meeting “was a great opportunity as an undergraduate to be surrounded by graduate level and faculty research, to see their work and to network.”
