Announcements
The Organismal Biology Day seminar was delivered by National Academy of Sciences member Rich Lenski on Thursday, April 23, 2009. The program included the seminar at 4:00 followed by a poster session and dinner open to all.Organismal Biology Day was jointly hosted by the BEES Program, The Smithsonian Institution, the UM Entomology and Biology Departments, and The College of Chemical and Life Sciences. Click here for photos.

The University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Institution have formally agreed to pursue research collaborations. A memorandum between the SI National Museum of Natural History and the UM BEES Graduate Program was also signed to establish the Consortium for Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology. Read more here.

This year's BEES Graduate Student Research Day and Recruitment RoundUP was held Friday, January 23, 2009. RoundUP brings together the BEES community to celebrate the excellent graduate research that is being conducted while having our potential BEES recruits on campus for the festivities.

Access a list of recommended readings that explain and defend evolution. Click here

Training in Paleobiology
The BEES program and the Smithsonian Institution now offer joint training with fellowship opportunities for qualified candidates in the area of Paleobiolgy within the BEES training mission. Please see the faculty lists for participating faculty and their research interests.

The University of Maryland is a member of the Organization for Tropical Studies.
For more information and a list of UMD OTS alumni click here.

Admissions
Admissions for Fall 2009 is now closed.
The Fall 2010 application deadline is December 10, 2009. Check back in Fall 2009 for a list of faculty accepting students.

BEES Seminar Series
BEES seminars are held Mondays at noon in room 1103 of the Bioscience Research Building. Click here for the schedule.

Graduate student accolades
-First year BEES student Mercedes Burns was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for her work on how morphological and behavioral properties may have led to species and mating-system diversity in harvestmen.

-A Goldhaber travel award was given to Jason Keagy to attend the 2009 Evolution meeting and present his research titled "Male general cognitive ability influences male mating success in the satin bowerbird."

-Christina Kennedy and Holly Martinson were awarded Wylie Dissertation Fellowships from the Graduate School for the 2009-2010 schoolyear. Congratulations to Christina and Holly!

-Judy Che-Castaldo received an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant for her work on the ecological interactions of a metal-hyperaccumulating plant.

-Sarah Kingston and Brian Davidson presented papers on their research on avian hybrid zones at the annual meeting of the Association of Field Ornithologists and the Wilson Ornithological Society. Sarah won a Best Student Paper Award, and Brian appeared in a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story on the meeting.

-Jason Keagy received the Hockmeyer Fellowship, a merit-based fellowship for graduate students in the College of Chemical and Life Sciences.

-Congratulations to Bryan Arnold and Julie Byrd-Hebert for receiving Cosmos Club grants.

-Emily Amitin received the Maud and Walter MacCormick Scholarship for spring 2009. Her advisor is Dr. Jerry Wilkinson, and the title of her dissertation is "Gametic Isolation in Stalk-eyed Flies."

-Ed Zattara was a recipient of a Summer Research Fellowship from the Graduate School. Congrats, Ed!

-Congrats to Julie Byrd-Hebert and Katie Schneider for receiving Goldhaber Travel Awards.

-Katie Schneider was awarded the Hockmeyer Fellowship from the College of Chemical and Life Sciences for the academic year 2008-2009.

-Jennifer Siani and Laura Craig were awarded Wylie Dissertation Fellowships for 2008-2009.

-Congratulations to Andreanna Welch who received a Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellowship for her research titled "Temporal and Spatial Variation in the Genetic Diversity of the Hawaiian Petrel (Pterodroma sandwichensis)."

-Two BEES students received Smithsonian Postdoctoral Fellowships!
   -Silvana Marten-Rodriguez "Floral variation in Caribbean Heliconia: the role of geographic mosaics and pollination             systems"
   -Eric Lind "Cascading effects of white-tail deer herbivory on insect biodiversity"