The biology program at Hiram College provides students with the knowledge and experience to become professional biologists. With our emphasis on experiential learning and hands-on applications, coupled with close faculty mentoring relationships, Hiram’s biology students develop the expertise to succeed in graduate programs and professional work environments in the modern life sciences.
The hallmark of Hiram’s biology program is our emphasis on research. Every biology student is required to complete a senior project in an area of his/her interest and expertise. This project may be conducted in coordination with a faculty member’s research, or it may be an independent research project executed with faculty direction. The project may also be an off-campus internship that involves research in a laboratory or at a field site. In addition, students may choose to shadow a professional in a clinical setting, intern as a naturalist at a park or nature preserve, or work in animal or plant care with a zoological or botanical garden. To enable our students to explore virtually limitless research areas, Hiram’s biology department sustains a faculty with a broad scope of expertise, ranging from paleontology to ecology, marine biology to genetics, animal behavior to plant systematics.
Hiram Alumnus Publishes Research on Loon Behaviors
Jay Mager, Class of 1991, now a faculty member in the Department of Biology at Northern Ohio University, is co-author of an article in the current (May/June) issue of American Scientist describing his work on social behavior and communication in the Common Loon. The authors have facilitated progress in studies of the loon by making use of a method for banding individual birds. Identification of individuals has led to greater knowlege about the loons' mating and nesting behaviors. The group has been studying loons in Oneida County, Wisconsin since 1993 and has used field observations, recording of vocal calls, and molecular techniques to further the knowledge of how loons acquire and defend breeding territories.
2011 J.J. Turner Society Award Announced
Joseph (Joe) Fernandez, Hiram College class of 1982, will receive the 2011 Turner Award at the Society’s annual dinner March 30. He will speak following an award presentation and induction ceremony at 7:45 pm in Kennedy Center Ballroom; the title of his address is “Hiram and liberal arts… the molding of a scientist into an entrepreneur.” The campus community and general public are invited to the evening’s program.
Following his graduation from Hiram College Mr. Fernandez pursued a graduate degree at Bowling Green State University but left to join the Stratagene company where he became involved in both the development and commercialization of products to be used in molecular biology research. Subsequently he and a partner established Invitrogen, Inc., a company focused on developing tools and materials for cellular biochemistry and molecular biology research. In 1999 Mr. Fernandez founded Active Motif, a company that specializes in tools and technologies, especially in the area of epigenetics and regulation of gene expression. He became a member of the Hiram College Board of Trustees in 2004.
The annual meeting will begin with Senior Biology Capstone presentations at 5:00 pm in Colton 120. A reception will follow in the Kennedy Center Ballroom at 6:20 pm. All graduating seniors in Biology, Biochemistry, Biomedical Humanities, and Neuroscience will be inducted into Society membership in the program starting at 7:45 pm. Area science alumni are invited to attend as well.
Field Station Receives Grants
The James H. Barrow Field Station has received two generous awards recently - $320,000 from the Paul and Maxine Frohring Foundation and a $62,512 Kent H. Smith Foundation. The Frohring grant will help endow the Field Station director’s position, will fund assessment of wetlands and ponds, and will support student research with faculty and staff members. In addition, a portion will support staffing necessary to implement the new stewardship plan and to manage the property sustainably. Allocation of the Smith award includes funds for research in forest ecology and native bird studies. Planned expenditures include equipment for data collection pertaining to the beech-maple canopy and its effect of soil and ground vegetation. U.S. Fish and Wildlife bird banding equipment will be purchased for research on native birds at the Station. Finally, part of the award is allocated for improved signage, gates at Station entrances, and for some fencing on Rte. 305 and Wheeler Road.
ALVIN: Oldest Research Sub - to be returned to the depths
The Alvin, a U.S. Navy-owned Deep Submergence Vehicle, built in 1964, is named for Allyn Vine, a 1936 graduate of Hiram College. The Alvin is the world's oldest submersible research vessel but has been rebuilt and reconditioned over the years. The Alvin is most known for locating a lost hydrogen bomb in the Mediterranean in 1966, for exploring the first-studied hydrothermal vents in the 1970's, and for surveying the wreckage of the Titanic in 1986. Now it is scheduled for another make-over and continued use in deep water research. More information about the Alvin can be found in the 23/30 December 2010 issue of Nature as well as at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution website (http://www.whoi.edu).
Allyn C. Vine received a Hiram degree in physics, chemistry and math. He then went on to receive a M.S. in physics and geophysics from Lehigh University in 1940. Vine spent his professional career at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Vine was inducted into the Turner Society (Department of Biology) at Hiram in the 1988-89 year and returned to give a talk to students and faculty that year. Vine died unexpectedly in 1994.