In 1994, Dr. Ed Klekowski began exploring the Connecticut River which rises in northern New Hampshire and, on its way to LI Sound, passes through Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Using scuba gear, Ed and a team of colleagues, and undergraduate and graduate students have come upon what appear to be an old dam, pieces of a train, the remains of a railroad trestle thought to have been ripped from its moorings by the flood of 1936, and remnants of the nation’s oldest canal built in 1792-95 near South Hadley. They have recovered anchors and variously colored glass elixir bottles. In August 1997, diving team members, grad students Monica O’Guinn and Sean Werle, discovered a 120-foot-deep abyss. It was named King Philip’s Abyss in homage to Metacomet, the Wampanoag Indian chief who fought to drive English colonists from the Connecticut River Valley. Denizens of the river encountered by Ed and his divers include the yellow lampmussel, Lampsilis cariosa, a freshwater clam (figured right) thought to have disappeared from the river 30 years ago, sponges the size of dinner plates, flatworms, mussels, eels, wall-eyed pike, and an abundance of the large green alga Chara as well as the bryozoan Pectinatella magnifica, a primitive filter-feeding animal. Clay deposits at the bottom of the river have yielded a new species of red bloodworm, Axarus varvensis.
On the bottom of the deepest parts of the river, Ed and his team have come upon varves, large stratiform sediments of clay and silt that were apparently formed when, with the waning of the most recent ice age, a massive body of water known as Lake Hitchcock (map right) covered the area between New Britain, CT and St. Johnsbury, VT.
Some of the artifacts reclaimed from the bottom of the river are currently on display at the Springfield Science Museum.  The exhibit, entitled "The Underwater World of the Connecticut River", features an eight-minute videotape that focuses on the archaeological, biological and historical treasures of the river. The exhibit is the first collaborative effort between the Springfield Science Museum and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Another display documenting the underwater world of the Connecticut was exhibited at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex, CT last summer.
The underwater exploration of New England’s largest river has led to the construction of a web site by Ed and project historian Libby Klekowski.  It offers much interesting information about the biology, history and geology of the Connecticut River, URL:

The Darwin Fellows Program, now in its fourth year, brings promising young postdoctoral researchers to the Organismal and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) Program at UMass Amherst.  The Darwin Fellows Program awards two two-year fellowships and enables the recipients to undertake a unique combination of teaching and research responsibilities that are excellent preparation for academic positions.  The fellowship program embodies the interdepartmental collaboration that characterizes the OEB Graduate Program.  Darwin Fellows are active participants in OEB, acting as mentors to graduate students, conducting research, leading seminar courses, and teaching courses in the Biology Department.
Our current Darwin Fellows are Dr. Andrew Hendry, and Dr. Jim O'Reilly.
Dr. Hendry (right, with whale bones) is an evolutionary ecologist with a B. S. from U. Victoria, BC, and a M. A. and Ph.D. from U. Washington, Seattle.  His research interests include (1) interactions between selection and gene flow during adaptive population divergence, (2) spatial and temporal scales of population structure, and (3) patterns and rates of micro-evolution in contemporary populations.  Through collaboration with other biologists, Andrew's work integrates theoretical modeling, molecular genetics, field and laboratory experiments, and surveys of biological diversity at varying scales. 
Dr. O'Reilly (right, with a caecilian, a tailless legless amphibian) earned his Ph.D. at Northern Arizona University.  Jim taught comparative vertebrate anatomy in the spring of 1999 and 2000.  His research interests include (1) the evolution of the physiological basis of movement in vertebrates, (2) the emergence of novel complex functional systems during vertebrate evolution, and (3) the natural history of reptiles and amphibians.
Previous Darwin Fellows, who have moved on to positions at other institutions, are:
Dr. Karen Kellogg, Ph.D. Penn State University '97, is a behavioral ecologist studying the evolutionary processes that gave rise to the diverse cichlid fishes of Lake Malawi, Africa.  She is currently a Teaching Associate in the Environmental Studies Program at Skidmore College where she is helping to establish the environmental studies major.  Dr. Andrew Simons, Ph.D. University of Alabama, is a molecular systematist who investigates the evolution, morphology, behavior, and biogeography of fish.  He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at the University of Minnesota.  Dr. Alison Hunter has a Ph.D. in ecology from McGill University (`92); her background is in terrestrial population and community ecology.  She is currently Research Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame.  Dr. Paul Morris, Ph.D. Harvard `91, specializes in invertebrate paleontology.  Currently, Paul is the Academy Malacologist at The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
It is clear, that by providing growth opportunities to biologists at the beginnings of their careers, the Darwin Fellows Program has enriched the entire biology family.