In September 1996, the faculty welcomed Jin Meng to the Biology Department. Dr. Meng received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1991.  Prior to his arrival at UMass, Amherst, Dr. Meng held postdoctoral positions at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., the University of Alberta and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Dr. Meng is a mammalogist who, by asking questions such as "What modifications of the short, straight cochlea of early mammals permitted the evolution of the coiled cochlea of living mammals?" hopes to elucidate the transitional stages in the evolution of the therian from the non-therian ear. He is also participating in an NSF sponsored project designed to clarify the relationships between the Rodentia (squirrels, beavers, rats, etc.) and the Lagomorpha (rabbits, hares, etc.), and the affinities of the Lagomorpha to other orders of mammals. It is hoped that this study will also shed light on the relationships within the Rodentia which are, at the present time, poorly understood. 
 

Elsbeth Walker assumed her duties in the Biology Department in the spring of 1997.  Dr. Walker received a Ph.D. from Rockefeller University in 1990. For the next three years she was a postdoctoral associate at Yale University and spent the following four years at Mount Holyoke College, first as Visiting Assistant Professor and then Principal Investigator. 
Dr. Walker is a geneticist interested in the inheritance of changes in gene expression in plants not occasioned by the alteration of DNA base sequences; more specifically, she is focused on paramutation in maize. Concomitantly, she is investigating a family of transposable elements in maize that cause mutations in the gene complex governing aleurone pigmentation. 
 

As the 1998-99 academic year began, we were joined by Dr. Ron Adkins.  Dr. Adkins received his undergraduate degree from Oklahoma State University and a Ph.D. in Genetics from Texas A & M University.  He was drawn to biology by his interest in nature, especially mammals, and spent many years live-trapping and working with field mice and rats, opossums, deer, gophers and armadillos.

Dr. Adkin's early interests were in ecology and evolution, and he has been involved in studies of nutrition, demography and hybridization.  In graduate school, Dr. Adkin's interests shifted. He became interested in the manner in which the expression, function and sequences of molecules change over evolutionary time and how one can use such sequences to determine the relationships among organisms.  At UMass, Dr. Adkins will be working on higher-level relationships among mammals; he will be trying to decipher how the growth hormone gene of higher primates became duplicated and how the sequences and the regulation of multiple copies of this gene have evolved.