Representation Matters: One Approach to Centering Diversity in Science Classes | Speaker Series

While some disciplines lend themselves to a focus on DEI issues via the content of the courses themselves, math and science courses historically do not. As we all work to make our classrooms more inclusive and accessible, we can benefit from observing and discussing approaches others have taken. Please join us for a discussion of one approach to centering DEI efforts in a STEM field and stay for a mini-conference that has emerged from this work

Creativity in Teaching - Engaging Students | Brownbag Series

Bring your lunch and learn from your colleagues! Brownbag lunch presentations will be held four times this semester with different faculty members presenting topics that may be helpful to you

A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world's importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth's microbial diversity.Peer reviewe

A communal catalogue reveals Earth’s multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world’s importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth’s microbial diversity

Urban Culling in Wildlife through a Social Justice Lens

Expanding on her research examining the relationship between race, racism, and wildlife population dynamics, her talk will look to inequalities in wealth across the St. Louis metropolitan area to examine disparities in host and parasite population dynamics. She\u27ll focus on ongoing research led by a small team of undergraduates in the biology program and their current findings