Biology Seminars Spring 2026


Friday, January 16th

Faculty Lightning Talks 

  • Dr. Allen Mensinger - HIP Marine Biology
  • Dr. Cody Sheik - It's ALIVE! The Ins and Outs of Ship Goo
  • Dr. Briana Gross - What is a Dwarf Bilberry, Anyway?

Friday, January 23th

Evaluating Drones for Monitoring Moose in New Hampshire, USA

  • Speaker: Lily Hall
  • Affiliation: University of New Hampshire
  • Hosted by: Dr. Allen Mensinger 

Friday, January 30th

Targeting Metabolic Vulnerabilities of Triple Negative Breast Cancer

  • Speaker: Dr. Andrew Skildum
  • Affiliation: UM Medical School
  • Hosted by: Dr. Clara Shaw

February

Friday, February 6th

Title: CryoEM Studies of Virus and Host Interactions

  • Speaker: Dr. Susan Hafenstein
  • Affiliation: UMTC Hormel Institute
  • Hosted by: Dr. Clara Shaw

Friday, February 13th

Darwin Day - The Origin of Species

  • Speaker: Dr. Tim Craig & Joanne K. Itami 
  • Affiliation: UMD Department of Biology
  • Hosted by: Dr. Allen Mensinger

Friday, February 20th (Location - Chem 200)

Title: Nectar Chemistry at the Nexus of Plant-biotic Interactions

  • Speaker: Dr. Clay Carter
  • Affiliation: UMTC College of Biological Sciences
  • Hosted by: Dr. Tim Craig/Dept of Chemistry & Biochemistry

Friday, February 27th

Graduate Student Lightning Talks

March

Friday, March 6th

No Seminar

Friday, March 13th

No Seminar

Friday, March 20th

Inspirational Teacher in the Life Sciences 

Friday, March 27th

Characterizing avian risk and multivariate contaminant profiles of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)

  • Speaker: Briar Lenz
  • Affiliation: IBS Masters Student
  • Hosted by: Dr. Matthew Etterson 

April

Friday, April 3rd

Title: Interdisciplinary Aquatic and Terrestrial Biological Research Using Remote Sensing and In-situ Observations

  • Speaker: Dr. Jeff Pu
  • Affiliation: PostDoc - LLO
  • Hosted by: Dr. Bill Perry 

Friday, April 10th

Title: TBA 

  • Speaker: Dr. Eric Seabloom
  • Affiliation: UMTC and Cedar Creek
  • Hosted by: Dr. Wendy Reed

Friday, April 17th

Title: Comparative Biomechanics of Native and Invasive Lampreys: A Framework for Species-Specific Management

  • Speaker: Lauren Willman
  • Affiliation: WRS Masters Student
  • Hosted by: Dr. Allen Mensinger 

Friday, April 24th 

Title: The role of Extracellular Matrix Proteins Fibronectin and Laminin in Axis Formation Within the Zebrafish Pineal Gland 

  • Speaker: Brennan Rosenthal
  • Affiliation: IBS Masters Student
  • Hosted by: Dr. Jennifer Liang

May

Friday, May 1st

Title: TBA

  • Speaker: Shannon Meehan
  • Affiliation: IBS Masters Student
  • Hosted by: Dr. Julie Etterson

Friday, May 9th

Title: TBA

  • Speaker: Anuj Singh
  • Affiliation: IBS PhD Student
  • Hosted by: Dr. Vankatram Mereddy