In January 1999, the faculty welcomed Rolf Karlstrom
to the Biology Department. Dr. Karlstrom comes to us with a B. S. from
Northern Arizona University, a Ph.D. from the University of Utah and
postdoctorals at the Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology at
Tübingen, Germany and the Skirball Institute of New York University
Medical Center. Rolf is featured in the Zebrafish article on page 1 of this
issue. Shown here (left to right) is Biology Department Chairman Chris Woodcock at the opening of
the new Zebrafish Breeding Facility which Rolf (with daughter astride hip) directs.
Last February we welcomed Yin-Long Qiu to the Biology Department.
Dr. Qiu is our long awaited plant molecular evolutionist. Y-Q
received a B. S. from Nanjing Agricultural University, PRC, and a Ph.D.
from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He spent three
postdoctoral
years at the University of Indiana with Jeffrey Palmer, one of the world's leaders in
plant molecular evolution. He then accepted an Assistant Professorship at
the Institute of Systematic Botany at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Y-Q will join Ron Adkins, our recently hired mammalian molecular
evolutionist, featured in BioMass Issue #1 "New Faculty Profiles",
strengthening molecular evolution within our department.
Just at press time we received news that Jeffrey Podos, our prime candidate for the behavioral ecologist position, has signed on to come to UMass this fall. Dr. Podos comes to us with a B. A. magna cum laude from Franklin and Marshall College, a Ph.D. from Duke University and a postdoctoral stint at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, where he obtained training in the Analysis of Biological Diversification project.