Whew, lots of things have happened during an extremely busy two semesters. After the smoke has cleared from teaching, we’ve said goodbye to Katherine Novak, who did such a great job assembling salamander mitochondrial genomes and presenting her work at the UMN Twin Cities Undergraduate Research Symposium. Not to mention all the organizing and cleaning of the lab spaces. As is tradition, Katherine named a few salamanders on her way out the door, examples including “Cleo”, “Blueberry”, and “Big Momma”.
The best news has been several funding awards that will support research projects in the lab this summer and beyond. We are well on our way in two areas specifically: more work on the evolution of all-female salamanders and some comparative biology with Minnesota’s Gray Treefrog species. To accomplish these projects, we are welcoming four new students to the lab. Such a joy to learn and do science together.
