PhD student Jess Sterling won the Wake Award for Best student talk @SICB 2025! Thanks to the Division of Phylogenetics and Comparative Biology and all the other talks in this competition were great as well. Jess’s talk was titled “Mitochondrial resilience: Unveiling the secrets of longevity“, based on her first dissertation chapter. Check out all the other student winners from this year’s conference.
Our lab is leading a big effort to get undergrads involved in biodiversity research by transforming the UT turtle pond into a living lab. We’ve involved around 100 students so far!
Last year, students sampled turtles (mostly red-eared sliders) in urban ponds across Austin to ask whether microbiomes were different in turtles from different ponds, or if different body parts of the turtles had different microbial communities.
This year, we’re focusing on the UT turtles, examining microbiomes in the same individuals across seasons and asking whether individuals have specific microbiomes. The turtles were also moved off campus for a short time while the UT ponds were being repaired, so we can ask whether an environmental disturbance caused changes in microbial communities.
Here’s a story from KUT highlighting the turtles’ moving adventure, and another story on our work.
Next year the project will continue in the broad sense, but students will be working with a different PI to address a different question at the ponds.
Almost anyone can get involved in this work! Just email Justin to get started.
