Catawba College students from the departments of biology, chemistry, and environment and sustainability took part in the 80th annual meeting of the Association of Southeastern Biologists in Memphis, Tennessee. Students were accompanied by faculty mentors Jay Bolin, Steve Coggin, Carmony Hartwig, Erin Howard and Joe Poston, all from the department of biology.

Six oral and poster presentations were given by Catawba College students and faculty. They included: 

• “An Overview of the Catawba College Herbarium Located in the Central Piedmont of North Carolina” by Jessica Willis, E. Malachi Gray, Jay F. Bolin, and Michael J. Baranski.

• “Identification of Glomus (Glomeromycota) Mycorrhizae in Association With the Aquatic Plant Isoetes (Isoetaceae)” by Kory Ly, Luke Humble, Viridiana Mandujano, Karina Noyola-Alonso, Angelo Troia and Jay Bolin.

• “Investigating the Effectiveness of the Antioxidant Catechin Hydrate on Artemisinin Activity in vitro” by Wyatt Zander and Carmony Hartwig.

• “Sampling the ‘Wild’: Isolation of Yeast Strains From Rowan County, North Carolina” by Kara Cline and Carmony Hartwig.

• “Using Flow Cytometry to Study Polyploidy in Quillworts (Isoetes) an Enigmatic Lycophyte Lineage” by Luke Humble, Kory Ly, Karina Noyola-Alonso, Viridiana Mandujano, Peter Schafran, Carmony Hartwig, Slavko Komarnytsky, and Jay Bolin.

• “Teaching With Wikipedia-Based Writing Assignments in the Organismal Biology Classroom” by Jay F. Bolin, Samantha Weald and Ian Ramjohn.

The conference included a meeting of Tri-Beta, the undergraduate biology honor society for Districts I and II, which includes Catawba’s Tau Eta Chapter. Catawba College won several accolades at the meeting, including honorable mention for best BBB Poster awarded to Kara Cline and Hartwig.

“The award was completely unexpected and very gratifying after all the hours spent in the lab,” said Cline, a senior biology student. “I really want to thank my faculty mentor, Dr. Hartwig.” 

Kory Ly, a sophomore double major in biochemistry and environment and sustainability, gave a poster presentation and said the meeting “was a great opportunity as an undergraduate to be surrounded by graduate level and faculty research, to see their work and to network.”

Other awards include:

• Catawba’s Tau Eta chapter won the award for most student delegates from District I, demonstrating the college’s commitment to undergraduate research.

• Steve Coggin won the BBB District I Adviser of the Year award.