Fatima Elhorry has loved being in the lab from the very beginning. The junior biology major and Dorothy Levis Munroe Student Research Award recipient grew up in Malaysia, where her father was completing his first PhD. As a child, she tagged along when he went to the lab.
“I would just love looking in the microscopes, and I remember one time he showed me how to use nitrogen. It was really fun. Me and my dad bonded over science.”
On a crisp winter afternoon, UNC Greensboro’s prairie went up in flames. But that was all part of the plan for Dr. Kevin Wilcox. He organized the controlled burn with the Forest Service on January 9, 2025.
Academic Year 2024 has been filled with many exciting accomplishment by both our undergraduate and graduate students. Here we share a sampling of their publications, awards, fellowships, field school work, and more!
Our faculty have highly respected research programs nationally and internationally. A sampling of the 2024 active programs, many of which are collaborative with other scientists, and biology faculty who direct these programs are shown here
Drs. Wilcox and Koerner have an active research program funded by the National Science Foundation involving graduate students, undergraduates, and citizens of South Africa. They are studying how biodiversity promotes recovery after compound extreme events such as the extreme drought and simultaneous heavy herbivory that occurred in southern African between the years of 2015-2016, or the drought that swept across Kenya in 2021 and 2022. The primary location of their study site is in Kruger National Park, South Africa.
Department Head Dr. Malcolm Schug provides an update on the department’s activities in 2024.
UNC Greensboro’s Dr. Bryan McLean and his collaborators have identified a new mammal in North America. Urocitellus idahoensis, the Snake River Plains ground squirrel, is named for its singular habitat in southern Idaho.
When he looked into college majors, he did not want something that would overly narrow his choices for an exciting career after graduation. The versatility of a biology degree was what drew him to that major as a first-year college student from Winston-Salem. “Biology gave me more leg room to work with,” he explains.
Dr. Ayalew Osena, an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology, has received a new 4-year, $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his project: Collaborative Research: Deciphering the mechanisms of iron acquisition and accumulation in the underutilized ancient crop tef (Eragrostis tef). The Osena lab at UNCG uses molecular-genetic and biotechnological tools to improve desirable traits in agricultural plants. This grant supports Osena’s ongoing research with the “orphan crop” tef, a grain.
Learn more about this year’s NSF Graduate Research Fellows, two of whom are from the UNCG Department of Biology.
