Tidbits

Congratulations!

Jann Vendetti gets her display ready for Cal Day.   Brian Kraatz helps a young paleontologist find microfossils at the Cal Day "Fun With Fossils" activity.

To Stephanie Bush, Jennifer McGuire, and Jann Vendetti, who all received Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor teaching awards from the Department of Integrative Biology.

To Brian Kraatz, who received the two-year Lincoln Ellsworth Fellowship from the American Museum of Natural History. Brian will be with Dr. Meng Jin studying early rodent and rabbit evolution. The project will be incorporated into a larger NSF Tree of Life project studying all of mammals.

To Nick Pyenson, who received the 2007 Louderback Award. Each year the Louderback Fund makes awards to recognize both the academic accomplishments and contributions to museum and departmental activities of students in paleontology and the earth and planetary sciences. Nick also recently received an NSF East Asian Summer Institutes fellowship to study the earliest baleen-bearing mysticetes in New Zealand with Ewan Fordyce, University of Otago, this summer.

To Brian Simison, on his appointment as supervisor of the Osher Molecular Laboratory at the California Academy of Sciences.

To Brian Swartz, who passed his orals in April.

To Cheng (Lily) Li, an undergraduate in the Barnosky lab, on her selection as a Nathan and Violet David scholar to conduct research on "The impact of environmental changes on the skull and mandible of the American Pika (Ochotona princeps) — a 2D morphometric study." Lily developed the proposal out of research she began with UCMP graduate student Brian Kraatz. The Nathan and Violet David Scholars Program "gives talented and service-minded students the opportunity to participate in undergraduate research in the sciences" and also sets them up as mentors for children from low-income backgrounds.

Other news
UCMP says farewell to senior preparator, Jane Mason. After nine years at UCMP, Jane is heading to Gainesville, Florida to join the staff of the Florida Museum of Natural History. We wish her well and look forward to seeing her at SVP meetings in the upcoming years.

Former UCMP grad student Ken Angielczyk has been offered the position of Curator of Paleomammalogy at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Ken expects to start work there in the summer. Currently, Ken is a postdoctoral fellow at the California Academy of Sciences; he has also spent a year's postdoc at the University of Bristol.

Former UCMP grad students Samantha Hopkins and Edward Davis along with their new daughter, Rowan, will be heading to Oregon this summer. Sam has accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor, in the Department of Geological Sciences, University of Oregon Honors College and Edward as Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Oregon.

The annual meeting of The American Association for the Advancement of Science took place in San Francisco from February 15–19. UCMP faculty curator Jere Lipps co-organized and co-chaired two symposia: "Enigmatic Europa: Understanding Jupiter's Icy Moon" and "Achieving and Sustaining a Diverse Science Work Force."

Nick Pyenson was an official blogger for KQED's QUEST initiative this spring. You can check out his past blogs in the archives.
 

Cal Day photos by Scott Fay and Liz Perotti.