 written by: Lasair ni Chochlain, Eric Hartel
Addressing the varied needs of graduate students as not only learners but also researchers and teachers is a complex job. The University of Maryland and the Department of Entomology are doing their best to tackle this issue head on in 2023. To learn more about how the disabilities of graduate students are accommodated at UMD, we invited the Director of Accessibility and Disability Service (ADS), Tessa Cahill, to come to the Entomology Dept. colloquium to present “Disability Compliance and Accommodations: A Graduate Student Experience.” Tessa is the inaugural director of ADS, which is currently going through a period of growth and expansion to better serve the campus community. These changes are the result of an an external review by the Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) and support from UMD’s Administration that has led to ADS hiring more full-time staff and expanding their reach across many departments. By embracing this review and the changes ADS has made, the University of Maryland has been able to provide a significant increase in support. Improved communication between counselors, students, and faculty is also helping to standardize and improve the quality of services offered. Tessa first spoke about “how we got here” on a national level and then about the role and services of ADS on the university level.
Congratulations to Entomology graduate students Katie Reding and Minh Le, from the Pick lab, for their publication "Genome editing of the vermilion locus generates a visible eye color marker for Oncopeltus fasciatus" in Scientific Reports. The study used CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to generate an eye color mutant in Oncopeltus (Of). Bugs homozygous for mutations in the Of-vermillion gene are viable, fertile and have bright red rather than black eyes. This is the first visible, genetic marker for this species, paving the way for development of additional genetic tools in this emerging model system for Hemiptera. In addition, these studies mapped Of-vermillion to the X-chromosome, the first gene to be mapped to a chromosome in this species. Finally, experiments using RNAi showed that knocking down the Oncopeltus ortholog of the rosy gene (encoding xanthine dehydrogenase) in Of-vermillion mutants changed the body color from orange-red to yellow, thus identifying a second candidate gene useful as a visible marker.
Research-In-Progress talks are important opportunities for entomology graduate students to develop the communication skills necessary to become researchers in entomology and related disciplines. At the first research-in-progress talks of the spring 2023 semester, three graduate students presented their research, which cover different subfields of entomology: Theresa Menna, a 2nd-year Biological Sciences-CBBG PhD student in the Fritz Lab, Minh Le, a 2nd-year Entomology PhD student in the Pick Lab, and Max Ferlauto, a 4th-year Entomology PhD candidate in the Burghardt lab.
 Peak bloom at the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC. Photo by Andy He. Every spring, visitors flock to Washington, DC, to see over a thousand Japanese cherry trees in full bloom along the Potomac River. This ephemeral event draws massive numbers of viewers and concludes once the trees have shed their petals, sometimes just a week after blooming. We don’t often think about petals after they’ve fallen, but recent research suggests that these petals are more than just visually pleasing. Dr. Rebecca Hale is an urban ecologist who leads the Watershed Science Lab, a team focused on investigating urban stream dynamics to understand how cities can develop more sustainably. Dr. Hale and her team have recently found evidence that petals from flowering trees can have a tremendous impact on nutrient levels in surrounding water systems. Even in urban settings, these water systems are a foundational component of the ecosystems we rely on.
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