Fordham Biology Students Win Grants, Honors

Some of Fordham University's biology students are on a roll.

Four graduate students have been awarded impressive grants and one graduating senior has been asked to speak at an American Zoological Association meeting.

Three students of Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences that work in Dr. J. Alan Clark’s lab – Anthony Caragiulo, Oriana Chan and Suzanne Macey, have been awarded highly prestigious Grants-in-Aid of Research. Sigma Xi is an international scientific research society, perhaps most well known for its publication, American Scientist.

“The Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research program has a highly competitive application process and only approximately 20 percent of applicants receive any level of funding,” said Clark, an associate professor of biological sciences.

Rachel Brickin, a doctoral student that also works in Clark’s lab, was awarded a $21,000 Research Assistantship award from the Mianus River Gorge Preserve, a local conservation organization. Awarded jointly to her and Clark, her dissertation mentor, the grant will be used to support Brickin’s dissertation research.

“Rachel is researching how migrating birds select stop-over habitat and how stop-over sites in cities and in stop-over sites dominated by non-native species affect migrants' physiological condition,” Clark said.

And Charles Cerbini, who will graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biological Sciences this month was invited to be a featured speaker at the upcoming meeting of the American Zoological Association on March 4. Cerbini will give a presentation on “Inducing earlier breeding in a flock of captive Chilean Flamingos through acoustic enrichment."

“Charles worked in my lab and participated last summer in Fordham's nationally-known, National Science Foundation-funded summer undergraduate research program at the Louis Calder Center - Biological Field Station,” Clark said.

Find more information about Dr. Clark’s research here.