News

Posted: Aug 20, 2014 - 12:00pm

DAN COLMAN, a Ph.D. student in the Department of  Biology, is this semester’s recipient of the 2014 Graduate Student Success  Scholar ship in the amount of  $7,300 , which is awarded by  the College of Arts & Sciences and funded by the Office of Graduate  Studies. The purpose of this award is to provide students with support for program continuation and completion. The recipient of this scholarship must demonstrate superior academic meri t and/or creative achievement.

Dan has been working with Dr. Cristina Takas - Vesbach for the past six years. The central focus of his dissertation is to describe the ecology of Archaea and Bacteria that inhabit the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park, with an emphasis on diversity and distribution. Dan’s research has revisited methods for describing archaeal biodiversity and has sought to describe the overall taxonomic diversity of both domain s within springs, and also the environmental controls that explain the distribution of the two  groups. Another goal of his research is to use genomics and/or culture - dependent work to characterize taxonomically novel organisms in the two domains that may enhance the understanding  of prokaryotic evolution, diversity and ecology.