News

Sydney Hope, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and a Fellow in the Interfaces of Global Change IGEP, recently received a travel award from the National Science Foundation’s GROW Program (Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide). The GROW Program expands opportunities for graduate students to engage in international research collaboration.

During Spring and Summer 2018, Sydney will travel to the town of Villiers-en-Bois in western France to work with her sponsoring scientist, Dr. Frédéric Angelier, at the Centre d’Etudes Biologiques ...

Congratulations to Amanda Wilson Carter, a former FLeDGE student and post-baccalaureate research fellow in the Hopkins Lab. Amanda successfully defended her dissertation at Illinois State University on Thursday, May 4, 2017. Her seminar was titled:

“Integrating natural variation in thermal conditions and maternal steroids into temperature-dependent sex determination”

Abstract:

The oversimplification of thermal conditions in both empirical treatments and theoretical applications has hindered our ability to understand how organisms respond to natural temperature variation. This is particularly problematic given that climate change is manifesting as an ...

From VT News

William Hopkins, professor of wildlife in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and director of the Global Change Center, has received the Graduate School’s 2017 Faculty Outstanding Mentor Award.

Sponsored by the Graduate School, the new award, to be presented annually, recognizes excellence in mentoring graduate students. Recipients are nominated by graduate students, and one professor from each college receives an award.

Hopkins’ research focuses on physiological ecology and wildlife ecotoxicology, addressing pressing questions in both basic and ...

John D. Willson, a former postdoc in the Hopkins Lab and current faculty member at the University of Arkansas, recently published a paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology titled, “Indirect effects of invasive Burmese pythons on ecosystems in southern Florida”.

Willson’s research paper was later highlighted in the online magazine, Anthropocene, published by Future Earth:

Invading pythons and the weird, uncertain future of the Florida Everglades

By Brandon Keim | February 8, 2017

The Florida Everglades are one of Earth’s biological marvels, ...

The Hopkins Lab will have 2 graduate research assistantship positions available in 2017

The Wildlife Ecotoxicology and Physiological Ecology Lab at Virginia Tech seeks to fill a Ph.D. and/or M.S. position focused on the reproductive ecology and conservation physiology of an imperiled salamander in Appalachian streams. The student’s research will focus on how habitat quality relates to parental behavior, reproductive physiology, and reproductive success of the eastern hellbender under field conditions.  The research will build upon our ongoing pilot work seeking to determine ...

The Hopkins lab was pleased to host Schuyler van Montfrans, a high school biology teacher at William Fleming High School, to participate in the the RET (Research Experience for Teachers) program this summer. This program, funded by the National Science Foundation, gives local teachers the opportunity to be immersed in original research, as well as a way to bring it back to the classroom. After participating in this program last year, we are happy to announce that this year ...

Dr. Bill Hopkins recently co-led an undergraduate Study Abroad Course in Ecuador. Many of the trip highlights were consolidated from social media and chronicled here in STORIFY.  

When the group returned to the States, the following story appeared in VT News:

From VT News

Students team with Ecuadorean tribes to learn most-effective plants for treating infection

It was a place where many lessons were learned.

Ten Virginia Tech undergraduate students held onto their hats this summer as they plunged down Amazonian river systems ...

From VT News

Ten Virginia Tech undergraduate students better hold onto their hats this summer as they plunge down Amazonian river systems into the heart of Ecuador.  At the helm of their canoes will be Global Change Center researchers Ignacio Moore and Bill Hopkins.

As part of a university-wide effort to promote study abroad, experiential learning, and undergraduate research, the students will witness the politics, history, culture, biology, and conservation issues in the South American country from May 16 to June ...

Cathy Jachowski successfully defended her dissertation on May 9th in Fralin Auditorium. Her public seminar was titled, “Effects of Land Use and Parasitism on Hellbender Salamanders: A Multilevel Perspective”.  Cathy, a member of the Hopkins Lab, is the first Interfaces of Global Change graduate student to complete a doctoral program at Virginia Tech!

Cathy will soon join the faculty in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation at Clemson University. Congratulations, Cathy!