What's New
The "What's New" section of our website features the awards, grants, publications, and other accomplishments attained by Environmental and Plant Biology faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates within the last 12-18 months.
Faculty & Staff Grants & Awards
Harvey Ballard received a $1,800 grant from the Society of Systematic Biologists for Systematic Studies of Hybanthus and Violoid Genera. (June 2008)
Sarah Wyatt received a $119,930 NSF grant for Functional Characterization of a Cytochrome P450 Involved in Gravitropic Signal Transduction. (June 2008)
Brian McCarthy received a $25,000 grant from the American Chestnut Foundation for "American chestnut restoration on surface mined sites in the Appalachians". (May 2008)
Philip Cantino received the 2008 Arts and Sciences College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Outstanding Service Award. (May 2008)
Glenn Matlack received the 2008 College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Outstanding Teacher Award 2008. (May 2008)
Sarah Wyatt received a $50,000 grant from the Ohio Plant Biotechnology Consortium for "a High Performance Computational Biology Pipeline for Regulatory Genomics". (May 2008)
Stefan Gleissberg received a $7,898 grant from the Ohio University Research Committee for "Establishment of transformation in California poppy". (May 2008)
Morgan Vis received a $7000 REU supplement to her current NSF grant.
Gar Rothwell, Gene Mapes and Ruth Stockey received a $7500 REU supplement to their current NSF grant.
Glenn Matlack and Jennifer Phillhower recevied a $500 Ohio Biological Survey grant for a project entitled Contribution of Fruit-ingesting Animals to the Biodiversity of Ohio Forests. (April 2008)
Sarah Wyatt received a $6,000 supplement to an NSF grant for "Functional Characterization of a Cytochrome P450 Involved in Gravitropic Signal Transduction". (March 2008)
The Ohio Consortium for Bioinformatics will receive $4.475 million from the Ohio Board of Regents. Ohio University, as the lead institution in this initiative, will partner with 11 other colleges and universities and the Ohio Supercomputer Center. Sarah Wyatt and Lonnie Welch (Computer Science) are the co-leaders of this effort at Ohio University and the authors of the successful proposal, which aims to position Ohio as a national leader in the emerging field of bioinformatics. This is one of only seven grants awarded in the first round of the Choose Ohio First Scholarship Program.
Kim Brown received a $2,000 grant from the National Wildlife Federation for a project entitled Greener Transportation Opportunities at OU.
Art Trese and Albert Cote (College of Education) received a $265,623 grant from the Ohio Department of Education for a project entitled Building Exemplary Elementary Foundations in Science. (August 2007)
Brian McCarthy has been elected to the position of Vice-Chair of the Vegetation Section, Ecological Society of America. (August 2007)
Ahmed Faik received a $339,583, three-year NSF grant for research on arabino(glucurono)xylan biosynthetic genes involved in endosperm cell wall elaboration in wheat. (August 2007)
Sarah Wyatt received a $6,000 supplement to an NSF grant for "Functional Characterization of a Cytochrome P450 Involved in Gravitropic Signal Transduction". (July 2007)
Gar Rothwell and Gene Mapes received a $6,500 supplement to an NSF grant for "Gymnosperms on the Tree of Life: Resolving the Phylogeny of Seed Plants". (July 2007)
Harvey Ballard was awarded a $40,200 grant from the OU 1804 Fund to establish a herbarium database network linking the Bartley Herbarium with several other Ohio herbaria.
Morgan Vis received a $7,500 Baker Fund award for a project entitled "Phylogeography of Batrachospermum gelatinosum (Rhodophyta) in North America". (May, 2007)
Sarah Wyatt was selected as a Presidential Teacher for 2007-2010. This is the highest teaching honor awarded by Ohio University. Only two to three Presidential Teachers are selected per year (two this year).
Glenn Matlack was awarded tenure. (May 2007)
Harvey Ballard received a $12,000 Baker Fund award for taxonomic, molecular and phylogenetic studies on the genus Rinorea (Violaceae) in Madagascar and southeast Asia. (April 2007)
Sarah Wyatt received a $25,000 award from the Ohio University Post-Doctoral Fellowship Committee, to support a post-doc for the 2007-2008 year. (March 2007)
Morgan Vis received a 3-year, $152,588 NSF grant for "Systematics of the Batrachospermalean Contorta Clade (Rhodophyta)". (March 2007)
Art Trese was selected for a second University Professor Award. He also received this award in 2002. (March 2007)
Art Trese is this year's recipient of the Class of 1950 Faculty Excellence Award. A single OU faculty member is selected annually for this award, which is administered by the Student Alumni Board. The award was presented by the Provost in a surprise ceremony in Art's PBIO 103 class. (March 2007)
Brian McCarthy and Michael Reynolds (ODNR) received a $5000 grant from the National Wild Turkey Federation to advance chestnut restoration in the State of Ohio. (January 2007)
Graduate Students
The following students received $400 travel grants from Graduate Student Senate: Yan Liang, Jody Schaub, Nathan Smucker, and Gregory Wahlert. (June 2008)
Melanie Schori received a $950 Graduate Student Research Grant from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists for her research on the systematics of Gomphandra (Stemonuraceae). (June 2008)
Vijay Ramprasad received a $650 research grant from the Graduate Student Senate entitled, "Ecology of pit and mound topography in Northeastern forests of United States." (June 2008)
Three Plant Biology graduate students won prizes on the 2008 Ohio University Research and Creative Activity Expo: Brian Keppler won a first prize with a poster entitled "An irregular xylem and drought resistant mutant of Arabidopsis." Melanie Schori won a second prize with a poster entitled "Species diversity of Gomphandra (Stemonuraceae) in the Philippines." Wei Zeng won a second prize with a poster entitled "GlucuronoArabinoXylan biosynthesis in wheat." (May 2008)
Chris Havran accepted a tenure track faculty position in the Biological Sciences Department at Campbell University. (May 2008)
Melanie Schori has been awarded the Clippinger Fellowship for the 2008-09 academic year. (April 2008)
Jason Larson received a $250 Ohio Biological Survey grant for a project entitled The Vascular Flora of Salt Fork State Park, Guernsey County, Ohio. (April 2008)
Nathan Smucker and Morgan Vis received a $500 Ohio Biological Survey grant to characterize the role of algal diversity in ecosystem functions of acid mine drainage impaired and remediated streams. (April 2008)
Krysta Hougen and Glenn Matlack received a $500 Ohio Biological Survey grant for a project entitled Long-term Effects of Industrial History on the Forest Flora of Southeastern Ohio. (April 2008)
Jody Schaub and Glenn Matlack received a $500 Ohio Biological Survey grant for a project entitled Accumulation of Biological Diversity in Regenerating Forests of Southeastern Ohio. (April 2008)
The following students received $650 research grants from Graduate Student Senate: Jason Larson (Vascular flora of Salt Fork State Park), Jody Schaub (Biodiversity in the regenerating forest mosaic of southeast Ohio), Trey Scott (Ailanthus altissima and its effects on the vegetation and soils of mixed-oak forests in southern Ohio), Nate Smucker (Recovery of ecosystem function and algal community structure in acid mine drainage impaired and remediated streams), and Greg Wahlert (A phylogeny of the Violaceae based on chloroplast DNA sequences). (March 2008)
The following students received $400 travel grants from Graduate Student Senate: Krysta Hougen, Denise House, Jody Schaub, John Wiley. (March 2008)
Krysta Hougen and Michael Dodson each received $650 grants from the Graduate Student Senate for a study of the "Long term effects of industrial history on the forest flora of southeastern Ohio," and Studying the invasion of Japanese knotweed", respectively.
Vijay Ramprasad received a $3,500 Taraknath Das Fellowship in Aid of Graduate Studies from the Southern Asian Institute of Columbia University. (November 2007)
Conny Bartholmes has received funding from the NSF MORPH program to attend a minicourse "Investigating the Evolution of Plant Form: Conceptual Integration from the Molecular to the Ecological" at the University of Colorado. (September 2007)
Heather Sanders received the Isabel Cookson Award for the best student paper presented in the Paleobotanical Section at the joint Botanical Society of America and American Association of Plant Biology meetings in Chicago, July, 2007. Heather's paper was titled "Upside down auxin suggests the evolutionary origin of isoetalean rhizomorphs."
Graduate Student Senate Original Work grants, ranging from $600 to $750, were awarded to Ben Flicker, Jennifer DeMuria, Greg Wahlert, and John Wiley. (June 2007)
Graduate Student Senate Travel Grants ($400 each) were awarded to Chris Havran, Heather Sanders, Melanie Schori, John Wiley, and John Withers. (May 2007)
At the 6th Annual Student Research and Creative Activity Fair, Chris Havran won first prize in Plant Biology for "Ecological Characterization of the Hawaiian Violets: Comparison of Violet Habitats on Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui, and Lanai" (coauthored by Harvey Ballard and Kim Brown). John Withers won second prize for "Characterization of cytochrome P450s involved in gravity signal transduction in Arabidopsis thaliana". Peter Schweizer won the Voinovich Center and MSES Sustainable Environments Award for 'The Spatial Distribution of Land Cover and its Influence on Watershed Condition". (May 2007)
Peter Schweizer received an award for the Best Student Oral Presentation at the 37th Annual Mississippi Water Resources Conference (Jackson, MS), for his talk "Spatial distribution of land cover and its influence on watershed condition." (April 2007)
Nathan Smucker (Morgan Vis, advisor) received a $5,378 Student Enhancement Award from the OU Council for Research Scholarship and Creative Activity in support of his research on the effects of temporal diatom variation on stream assessments, remediation, and conservation. (April 2007)
Greg Wahlert (Harvey Ballard, advisor) received a $5,400 Student Enhancement Award from the OU Council for Research Scholarship and Creative Activity in support of his systematic and biogeographic studies of the tree-violets from Madagascar and the Comoros Islands. (April 2007)
Jhy-min Chiang, who just completed his Ph.D. in Kim Brown's lab, has accepted a postdoctoral position in the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute in Taipei, Taiwan. (March 2007)
Three of the 13 Original Work Grants awarded Winter Quarter by Graduate Student Senate went to Environmental and Plant Biology graduate students (all for $650): Nathan Smucker (Morgan Vis, advisor), John Withers (Sarah Wyatt, advisor), and Greg Wahlert (Harvey Ballard, advisor). In addition, three students received GSS Travel Grants: Peter Schweizer (Glenn Matlack, advisor), Nathan Smucker (Morgan Vis, advisor), and Emily Hollingsworth (Morgan Vis, advisor). (March 2007)
John Withers, currently completing a M.S. in Sarah Wyatt's lab, has been accepted into the doctoral program in the Plant Biology Department and Plant Research Lab at Michigan State University with a full research fellowship. He will most likely be studying plant-insect interactions, specifically systemic acquired resistance and jasmonic acid signalling between the plants, their antagonists, and beneficial parasitic wasps.
Matthew Albrecht has accepted a the position of Assistant Curator of Conservation Biology a the Missouri Botanical Garden. (January 2007)
Undergraduate Students
Clare Bruggeman (Honors Tutorial College; working with Stefan Gleissberg) won a first prize in the 2008 Ohio University Research and Creative Activity Expo with a poster entitled "Investigating the effects of phytohormones on leaf dissection in the California poppy, Eschscholzia californica." (May 2008)
Nathan Jud (working with Gar Rothwell) won a first prize in the 2008 Ohio University Research and Creative Activity Expo with a poster entitled "A new Upper Cretaceous stem provides fossil evidence of herbivory and detritivory." (May 2008)
Nick Stanich (working with Gar Rothwell) was one of 27 students in the nation selected by the Botanical Society of America for the 2008 Young Botanist of the Year Award. (May 2008)
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Nathan Jud (working with Gar Rothwell) received a Vernon Cheadle Student Travel Award from the Botanical Society of America to attend the Botany 2008 conference in Vancouver. (May 2008)
Cory Frederick (working with Sarah Wyatt) received a $1,000 Jeanette G. Grasselli Brown Undergraduate Research Award from the College of Arts and Sciences. (May 2008)
Samuel Drerup (working with Morgan Vis) received a $1,000 Jeanette G. Grasselli Brown Undergraduate Research Award from the College of Arts and Sciences. (May 2008)
Nathan Jud was awarded the Daisy Jones Scholarship ($1,000) by the Federated Garden Clubs of Cincinnati. (May 2008)
Clare Bruggeman (faculty mentors: Stefan Gleissberg and Sarah Wyatt) has been awarded a prestigious Goldwater Scholarship for 2008-2009.
Cory Frederick (working with Sarah Wyatt) has received a $3,500 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship for summer 2008 from the American Society of Plant Biologists.
Honors Tutorial College student Sarah Shoup (faculty mentor: Harvey Ballard) was selected to participate in an undergraduate research program at La Selva Biological Research Station in Costa Rica, operated by the Organization for Tropical Studies and funded by the National Science Foundation. (March 2008)
Jasmine Bascom (working with Sarah Wyatt) was awarded $934 from the Provost's Undergraduate Research Fund for "Elucidating Genes and Cis-regulatory Elements Involved in Gravity Signal Transduction in Arabidopsis thaliana Using Gene Expression and Bioinformatics Approaches." (November 2007)
Jason Bonham (working with Kim Brown) was awarded $750 from the Provost's Undergraduate Research Fund for "Tree of Heaven: An Invasive Mystery." (November 2007)
Clare Bruggeman (working with Stefan Gleissberg) was awarded $1,354 from the Provost's Undergraduate Research Fund for "Role of Phytohormones in Leaf Development of the California Poppy." (November 2007)
Sam Drerup (working with Morgan Vis) was awarded $865 from the Provost's Undergraduate Research Fund for "Phylogeography of Batrachospermum boryanum." (November 2007)
Nick Stanich (working with Gar Rothwell) was awarded $900 from the Provost's Undergraduate Research Fund for "Structure and evolutionary implications of a new fossil Equisetum from the Cretaceous flora of Apple Bay." (November 2007)
Dustin Sutherland (working with Harvey Ballard) was awarded $975 from the Provost's Undergraduate Research Fund for "Molecular Systematic and Biogeographic Studies on Tree-Violets (Rinorea) in Madagascar and Southeast Asia." (November 2007)
Matthew Williams (working with Ahmed Faik) was awarded $1200 from the Provost's Undergraduate Research Fund for "Biochemical Characterization of Putative Fucosyltransferases for Arabinogalactan-proteins." (November 2007)
At the 6th Annual Student Research and Creative Activity Fair, Matthew Williams won first prize in Plant Biology for "Biochemical Characterization of Putative Fucosyltransferases for AGPs" (coauthored with Allan Showalter and Ahmed Faik). Joseph Bass won second prize for "Mapping and Baseline Monitoring of Invasive Species of Lake Vesuvius Recreational Area, Wayne National Forest, Lawrence County, Ohio". (May 2007)
Diana Roberts received a travel grant to attend the annual meeting of the American Society of Gravitational and Space Biology. At this meeting, she won 3rd prize for her presentation (coauthored by Sarah Wyatt) on "Identification and characterization of ARF9 as a gps3-like mutant". (Nov. 2006)
Kelli Johnson and Nathan Jud have been selected for Young Botanist of the Year awards by the Botanical Society of America. These awards are given to a small number of particularly promising undergraduate students. (May, 2007)
Recent Publications (2007-08 only)
Huang, M., D. J. Crawford, J. V. Freudenstein and P. D. Cantino. 2008. Systematics of Trichostema (Lamiaceae): evidence from ITS, ndhF and morphology. Systematic Botany 33: 437-446.
McEwan, R. W. and B. C. McCarthy. 2008. Anthropogenic disturbance and the formation of oak savanna in central Kentucky, USA. Journal of Biogeography 35: 965-975.
Jud, N.A., G.W. Rothwell and R.A. Stockey. 2008. Todea from the Lower Cretaceous of western North America: implications for the phylogeny and evolution of modern Osmundaceae. American Journal of Botany 95: 330-339.
Tomescu, A. M. F., G.W. Rothwell and R. Honegger. 2008. Earliest fossil record of bacterial-cyanobacterial mat consortia: the early Silurian Passage Creek biota (440 Ma, Virginia, USA). Geobiology 6: 120-124.
Tomescu, A. M. F., G.W. Rothwell and M.L. Trivett. 2008. Reiterative growth in the complex adaptive architecture of the Paleozoic (Pennsylvanian) filicalean fern Kaplanopteris clavata. Plant Systematics and Evolution 270: 209-216.
Cantino, P. D. and R. G. Olmstead. 2008. Application of phylogenetically defined names does not require that every specifier be present on a tree. Syst. Biol. 57: 157-160.
Stockey, R.A. , G.W. Rothwell and K.R. Johnson. 2007. Cobbania corrugata (Lesquereux) gen. et comb. nov. (Araceae): a floating aquatic monocot from the Upper Cretaceous of North America. American Journal of Botany 94: 609-624.
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Rothwell, G. W., G. Mapes, J. Hilton, and N. Hollingsworth. 2007. Anatomy of cheirolepidiaceous pollen cones; Classostrobus crossii sp. nov. International Journal of Coal Geology 69: 55-57.
Bateman, R.M., P. Kenrick, and G.W. Rothwell. 2007. Do eligulate herbarcous lycopsids occur in Palaeozoic strata? Hestia eremosa gen. et sp. Nov. from the Dinantian of Oxroad Bay, East Lothian, Scotland. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 144: 323-335.
Pierson, S.A.M., C.H. Keiffer, B.C. McCarthy, and S.H. Rogstad. 2007. Limited reintroduction does not always lead to rapid loss of genetic diversity: An example from the American chestnut (Castanea dentata; Fagaceae). Restoration Ecology 15: 420-429.
Joesting, H.M., B.C. McCarthy, and K.J. Brown. 2007. The photosynthetic response of American chestnut seedlings to differing light light environments. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 37: 1714-1722.
Schelling, L.R. and B.C. McCarthy. 2007. Seed banks of mixed oak forest: effects of forest management on species composition and spatial pattern. Natural Areas Journal 27: 320-331.
Matlack, G. R. and Nicolae Leu. 2007. Persistence of dispersal-limited species in structured dynamic landscapes. Ecosystems 10: 1287-1298.
Cantino, P. D., J. A. Doyle, S. W. Graham, W. S. Judd, R. G. Olmstead, D. E. Soltis, P. S. Soltis, and M. J. Donoghue. 2007. Towards a phylogenetic nomenclature of Trachophyta. Taxon 56: 822-846.
McEwan, R.W., T.F. Hutchinson, R.D. Ford, and B.C. McCarthy. 2007. An experimental evaluation of fire history reconstruction using dendrochronology in white oak (Quercus alba). Canadian Journal of Forest Research 37: 806-816.
Albrecht, M.A. and B.C. McCarthy. 2007. Effects of storage on seed dormancy and survivorship in black cohosh (Actaea racemosa L.) and goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis L.). Seed Science & Technology 35: 414-422.
McEwan, R.W., T.F. Hutchinson, R.P. Long, R.D. Ford, and B.C. McCarthy. 2007. Temporal and spatial patterns of fire occurrence during the establishment of mixed-oak forests in eastern North America. Journal of Vegetation Science 18: 655-664.
Sanders, H., G.W. Rothwell and S. Wyatt. 2007. A paleontological context for the developmental mechanisms of evolution. International Journal of Plant Sciences 168: 719-728.
Stockey, R.A. , G.W. Rothwell and K.R. Johnson. 2007. Cobbania corrugata (Lesquereux) gen. et comb. nov. (Araceae): a floating aquatic monocot from the Upper Cretaceous of North America. American Journal of Botany 94: 609-624.
Rinkes, Z. L. and B. C. Mccarthy. 2007. Ground layer heterogeneity and hardwood regeneration in mixed oak forest. Applied Vegetation Science 10: 279-284.
Sardar H. and A. M. Showalter. 2007. A cellular networking model involving interactions among glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored plasma membrane arabinogalactan proteins (AGPs), microtubules and F-actin in tobacco BY-2 cells. Plant Signaling and Behavior 2: 8-9.
Yang, J., H. Sardar, K. McGovern, Y. Zhang, and A. M. Showalter. 2007. A lysine-rich arabinogalactan-protein in Arabidopsis is essential for plant growth and development, including cell division and expansion. Plant Journal 49: 629-640.
Hartman, K. M. and B. C. McCarthy. 2007. A dendroecological study of forest overstory productivity following the invasion of the non-indigenous shrub Lonicera maackii. Applied Vegetation Science 10: 3-14.
Glasgow, L. S. and G. R. Matlack. 2007. Prescribed burning and understory composition in a temperate deciduous forest, Ohio, USA. Forest Ecology and Management 238: 54-64.
Glasgow, L. S. and G. R. Matlack. 2007. The effects of prescribed burning and canopy openness on establishment of two non-native plant species in a deciduous forest, southeast Ohio, USA. Forest Ecology and Management 238: 319-329.
Laurin, M. and P. D. Cantino. 2007. Second Meeting of the International Society for Phylogenetic Nomenclature: a Report. Zoologica Scripta 36: 109-117.
Other Publications
An article highlighting this department, entitled "Combining Breadth with Specialization to Build a Strong Botany Department," was published in Plant Science Bulletin 50: 38-40. (June 2004)