LETTER FROM THE DEPARTMENT HEAD

I hope that this issue of The Promoter finds you all well. This year has been one of the most challenging years in recent history. As we faced a global pandemic, we were all faced with the question “what do we do?”

Here, in the Department of Biological Sciences, we had to quickly move our classes to online and hybrid learning and momentarily stop our research — and then restart it with new safety measures in place. In this issue, you can read about how new faculty member Kate Hong set up her neuroscience lab in the midst of COVID-19. You can also read about an innovative class that showed students the possibilities of automated and remote science using a Cloud Lab. This class was offered in partnership with Emerald Cloud Lab, which was founded by alumni Brian Frezza and D.J. Kleinbaum.

Many of our alumni stepped up to the plate to make a difference. Robert Mays and his company, Athersys, Inc., have been developing a stem cell therapy that could treat one of the most fatal complications of COVID-19. Andrei Tadique is leading a team that is working on the effort to provide and deliver COVID-19 vaccines to the United States.

It’s also important to remember that a lot of really great things happened in 2020. Our students were honored with numerous awards, including Cassie Bishop who received a Goldwater Scholarship. Members of our community were recognized for their leadership by the university: Amy Burkert won CMU’s Doherty Award; Russell Schwartz was named the head of the Department of Computational Biology; and Annette Vincent was appointed the Associate Dean of the Office of Diversity and Climate at CMU-Qatar. Our faculty and students made research advances in the fields of neuroscience, evolutionary and developmental biology, imaging and health sciences.

I think we can look back and say that even in the face of a pandemic, we achieved many things that we can be proud of. We’d love to hear about how you are making a difference in this world. Feel free to contact us with an update.

Sincerely yours,