Hello everyone and happy almost summer! My name is Jesse Miller, and I'm a junior Biology major/french minor at Saint Mary's College. I joined Dr. Young and the Locomotion Lab gang at the beginning of this semester and it’s been a blast! I’m currently working on the most recent turtle project that’s been ongoing since 2021. I’ve been doing a lot of research on comparative limb bone scaling and shape between Pleurodire and semi- aquatic Cryptodiran turtles. Right now we’re still in the process of running code in RStudio, which is a really great tool for data analysis (and also really fun to work with, others might disagree.) I was very interested in studying biomechanics after taking Dr. Young’s course in animal biomechanics and I'm excited to see what conclusion we come to with this project. I also had the opportunity to attend the Midwest Regional SICB conference in March, which was a great experience for myself and others in Dr. Young and Dr. Whitlow’s labs. I can’t wait to attend again next year!
The Locomotion and Whitlow Labs teamed up to head to Chicago for the Midwest rSICB meeting in early April. Hana and Emily reflect on their experiences below:
Hana: This past weekend the locomotion lab, in conjunction with Dr. Whitlow’s lab, had the opportunity to attend the Midwest Regional SICB Conference at the University of Chicago! It was a great experience for not only myself, but for others who had never attended a conference before. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the national conference, I enjoyed how much more relaxed it was compared to the national SICB conference. At this conference, I presented my summer research/ senior comprehensive poster looking into the effects of flow on filtering and gaping behavior in M. galloprovinciallis. During my presentation, I got to meet other undergraduate researchers and had the chance to speak with professors from other institutions. This conference was such a wonderful experience and I can’t wait to present again in the future! Emily: This past weekend the Whitlow lab and locomotion lab attended rSICB at UChicago. It was a fun filled weekend full of fantastic talks from sloth vertebrae to mudskipper blinking. Having been to the national conference in Austin, Texas, I was also able to reconnect with some of the friends that I made there, and also meet lots of new people. During the conference we were also able to tour some of the spaces at UChicago; the anatomy lab, fossil lab, and the XROMM facility. All of which were very cool experiences especially the fossil lab where we were able to see many dinosaur, turtle, and fish fossils! Overall this conference was one to remember and the best people to be nerds with! Hello again!
The spring semester has flown by and juniors in the lab have begun preparations for our independent research, which we will conduct in the fall! For my senior comp I will be looking into how the women’s menstrual cycle affects the knee. Did you know that depending on where a woman is in her menstrual cycle, she may be at an increased likelihood of knee injury? To further examine how the menstrual cycle impacts the knee, I will be comparing participants’ knee flexion based on two separate drop jump tests they participate in: one during menstruation and another when she is not menstruating. I am very excited to continue this process and to get to the point where we will get some answers! More to come in the fall semester! Over the summer I will be traveling back home to Oakfield, NY and will be working in a coffee shop as a barista. When not serving the best coffee in the world, I will be volunteering at a comfort care home for the terminally ill and I look forward to giving back to my community. Just so I end this post on a positive note, I will also be doing a little bit of traveling here and there as well as helping with my aunt and uncle who are expecting in early July! |
AuthorsAlok Agwick Archives
February 2024
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