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Harvey Mudd Math-Bio Senior Wins Award at National Sigma Xi Student Research Conference. Ben Nahir ’04, a senior Mathematical Biology major at Harvey Mudd College, won the “Superior” award for best poster in Immunology/Neuroscience at the November 2003 Sigma Xi Student Research Conference in Los Angeles.

Ben’s project, “Cloning, Localization, and Characterization of Tolloid and BMPR-II in Aplysia californica,” was co-authored by Sean Reagin (University of Georgia), and Andrea Kohn, Thomas Ha, and Leonid Moroz (all from the University of Florida).

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HMC Biology professor co-discoverer of new coral species. Harvey Mudd Biology Professor Catherine McFadden and Dr. F. G. Hochberg of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History have discovered two new species of coral off the California coast. The new species are described in an article entitled “Biology and taxonomy of encrusting alcyoniid soft corals in the northeastern Pacific Ocean with descriptions of two new genera (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Octocorallia)” in the spring issue (122[2]) of Invertebrate Biology. The article summarizes the current knowledge about the distribution, ecology and reproductive biology of four encrusting species in the soft coral family Alcyoniidae.

According to Prof. McFadden, “Although marine biologists had known of the existence of these corals for some time, the species had never been formally named or described. They are small and tend to live in crevices and other places that are difficult to access, so they are easily overlooked.”

One of the newly discovered species, Thrombophyton coronatum, occurs in the subtidal (always submerged) areas along the southern California coast from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to San Diego and in the Channel Islands. It forms irregularly shaped colonies on rock surfaces and, like other soft corals, lacks the hard, internal skeleton traditionally associated with reef-building corals.

Another new, similar species, Thrombophyton trachydermum, lives in the intertidal (between low and high tides) areas along the Central California coast, and also off Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and in the San Juan Archipelago of Washington state. A new genus was created by McFadden and Hochberg to organize the new species within their coral family.

The paper also places another coral species found along the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States and Canada within a new genus, and reports the discovery in Alaska of a species that was previously known only from Japan. “The marine fauna of our coast is well studied compared to that of most regions of the world, yet we are still finding new species all the time,” said McFadden. “In the tropical Indo-Pacific a majority of the many coral species found in some areas have never been described scientifically.”

[Read the abstract of the article.]

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Two HMC Biology grads awarded prestigious fellowships for graduate study. Andrew Schile ’01 was awarded a Predoctoral Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Andy is one of only 49 students from colleges and universities worldwide to win an HHMI predoctoral fellowship. The fellowship supports up to five years of work toward a doctoral degree in the biological sciences. Andy is pursuing his Ph.D. studies at the Rockefeller University.

Matthew de la Pena Mattozzi ’02 received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. NSF Graduate Fellowships offer recognition and three years of support for advanced study to approximately 900 outstanding graduate students in the mathematical, physical,biological, engineering, and behavioral and social sciences. Matt is carrying out his Ph.D. work in Plant and Microbial Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

[Read the fellowship award announcement from HHMI | Read more about NSF Graduate Fellowships]

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Harvey Mudd Bio/Chem major wins Goldwater Fellowship. Kevin Esvelt ’04, a double major in Biology and Chemistry at Harvey Mudd College, was awarded a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for the 2003-2004 academic year.

Goldwater scholars are nominated by their colleges and universities, then chosen by the selection committee. Goldwater Scholars are among the top science, mathematics, and engineering students in the USA.

[Read the press release ]