First Annual KEY Award for New Faculty goes to…
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He will receive a NIGHTSEA SFA outfitted with two excitation/emission combinations plus $750 in supplies from the EMS catalog.
Dr. Mitchell completed his post-doc at the University of Arizona (Dept. of Neuroscience) with Dr. John Hildebrand and is beginning a tenure-track Assistant Professorship in the Biology Department at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. His research involves mapping neural structures used by insects to respond to key odors such as pheromones and host plant volatiles. This research has very practical implications: characterizing those structures will fast-track the identification of odors that strongly influence insect behavior, yielding new methods to monitor and control insect pests.
The SFA will be especially helpful in Dr. Mitchell’s new lab. During his graduate work at UA, Dr. Mitchell had ready access to a fluorescence microscope to check his sample preparations before renting time on the university’s confocal microscope. However, his facility at UW Oshkosh has neither microscope readily available so he plans to use the NIGHTSEA system to pre-screen his samples before making the 100-mile trip to UW Madison to use their confocal.
Dr. Mazel instituted the Key Award to acknowledge his own mentors and to give back to Science. Dr. Mitchell will pay NIGHTSEA’s generosity forward in his new position as Instructor of biology and curator of the insect collection at UW Oshkosh. As he cited in his Key Award application, “[The NIGHTSEA SFA] is an excellent platform for students to directly learn the principles of … fluorescence microscopy, and…will allow me to translate my experience in insect neurophysiology [both] in outreach activities at the insect collection and in school classrooms.”
According to NIGHTSEA founder Dr. Charles Mazel, the number and quality of the applications presented a tough challenge for the award’s academic selection committee. NIGHTSEA and EMS were very encouraged by the strong interest in the award and are looking forward to offering it again in 2016.
