News

Biology professor and Herbarium curator Dick Olmstead was named a 2012 Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation! Guggenheim Fellowships are "mid-career" awards that provide support for researchers who "have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship". 181 Guggenheim Fellowships were awarded this year out of several thousand applicants. Click here to read more about this award and Dick Olmstead's research.

Biology Professor Emeritus John S. Edwards passed away on 25 March 2012 at the age of 80. To call him a Renaissance Man would be an understatement. He was a great naturalist and adventurer:  he was especially fond of exploring “the secrets of strange insects that live in cold places.”

John was known around the world as one of the pioneers of insect developmental neurobiology. He was also a leading scholar in the ecology of high-altitude insects, cold tolerance of Antarctic insects, the role of insects in ecosystem regeneration following volcanic eruptions, and the evolution of insect flight.  His academic passions extended far beyond science.  He was also deeply knowledgeable about early American landscape painting and about early European music.  This diversity of interests was apparent in his youth: his undergraduate advisor told him that he suffered “from responding to an excessive diversity of stimuli.”

John was a skilled mountaineer. He climbed around the world, made first ascents in Alaska, was on the expedition that made the first winter ascent of Denali, and was elected to the Alaska Sportsman Hall of Fame. He put his mountaineering skills to academic use in his pioneering studies of the ecology of high-altitude insects. His love of mountains inspired him to devote considerable efforts to protecting the North Cascades, including serving ten years on the board of the North Cascades Conservation Council.

Born in New Zealand in 1931, John received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Auckland in 1954 and 1956, respectively. He earned his doctorate degree in 1960 with Sir Vincent Wigglesworth at the University of Cambridge. He then became an Assistant (and later Associate) Professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.  In 1966 he interviewed for a position in the Department of Zoology at the University of Washington, and he received the Department’s offer letter via an airdrop at Base Camp on Denali.  John’s climbing adventure apparently annoyed the Chair of Zoology, who was relieved when John returned alive (one of his fellow climbers had perished).

At the UW John taught entomology, human ecology, and other courses for decades. He served as the Director of the Undergraduate Biology Program from 1982-87 and Director of the UW Honors Program from 1994-2000.  He was appointed Emeritus Professor of Zoology in 2000, but his support for students did not end with this retirement. In 2009, John generously established the John S. Edwards Endowed Fund in Biology to provide support for graduate students conducting research in environmental biology.

John received many prestigious awards throughout his career, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Senior Humboldt Research Award, and a Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award from the NIH.  He was a University Liberal Arts Professor and was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Royal Entomological Society of London.  He served as Program Director for Developmental Neuroscience at the National Science Foundation.

John was passionate about early music. He redoubled his efforts to play Bach on the harpsichord in his 70s, and was an active supporter of Gallery Concerts in Seattle.

John’s personality is well described in this passage from Art Davidson’s account of the first winter ascent of Denali (Minus 148°):

“Though none of us had met John, people at the Institute of Arctic Biology, where I worked and where he had once held a position, spoke of him as an extremely delightful overgrown elf.  He was fabled to be amiable, boisterous, occasionally mischievous, and at the same time a thoroughly levelheaded and thoughtful fellow.  My first meeting with John reaffirmed the legend.  I had traced the sounds of a concert through several corridors at the Institute to a short figure hopping about from leg to leg while vocalizing the entire woodwind section of an orchestra.  This apparition’s large, elfin ears stuck out from generous locks of golden hair, his hands rapidly punctuated the air in time to the symphony, and his light-blue eyes flashed me a quizzical glance.  It was John.”

John Edwards is survived and remembered fondly by his brother Graeme Edwards of Auckland New Zealand and his four loving sons, Richard, Duncan, Marten, and Zachary, and their families. John will be missed for his friendship, his wit, and his wisdom – and for his unbounded love of insects, music, and high places.

His delightful autobiography is accessible at (http://faculty.washington.edu/danielt/people2012.html).  Look for Edwards and click on “Autobiography.”

Those wishing to honor John’s memory with a gift may do so by contributing to the endowment he established. To make a contribution, please mail a check to the John S. Edwards Endowed Fund in Biology to the following address:

UW Biology
c/o Kristy Brady
Box 351800
Seattle, WA 98195-1800

Biology professor and Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Keiko Torii was featured in the American Society for Cell Biology's Newsletter. Click here to read the artcle and learn about Torii's impressive career trajectory, how her balance of family and career is making her a role model, and the career path she gave up to pursue science.

Biology professor Emily Carrington's research on mussels was featured in a Seattle Times article discussing the implications of ocean acidification on marine life. Some areas of Puget Sound are already becoming more acidic and the effects on marine life are in some cases already being witnessed. Click here to read the full article and learn more about the research scientists are now conducting to determine how acidification combined with other factors, like temperature, will impact marine life. 

Congratulations to Prof. Emeritus Estella Leopold, who is this year's recipient of the Grace Hopper Outstanding Achievement Award presented by the Seattle Girls' School!  This award recognizes outstanding contributions by women to their professional fields and to the greater community.   Click here to read more about this award.

Increasingly, medical researchers are turning to zebrafish as study subjects, rather than mice. Advantages of using zebrafish include their faster life cycles, so study effects can be seen more rapidly. They are also much smaller than mice, so huge numbers of them can be kept in relatively small spaces. But huge numbers mean that the fish need to be reproducing in large numbers, too, and zebrafish, it turns out, are a bit picky in who they choose to mate with. Biology professor Dave Parichy is among a group of experts helping uncover the traits that males and their choosier counterparts, females, prefer. Read more about the rise of zebrafish in this Wall Street Journal article.

Why are chilies hot? Biology professor Josh Tewksbury and graduate student alum David Haak (now a post-doc at Indiana) published new research in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B providing one more clue to the spicy puzzle. The answer involves a large cast, including insects, fungus, and ... rain. Rain? Yes, rain. Turns out all that spiciness takes a toll on chilies by making them thirsty. Mild chilies, on the other hand, do just fine parched. There's more to the story though, and you can read about it in Science Magazine.

Biology professor Carl Bergstrom's new textbook on evolution has just been published by W.W. Norton.

You can check out the book, entitled Evolution, on W.W. Norton's website: http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=23004.

Biology professor Jen Ruesink and her research on oysters in Willapa Bay were featured on the tv program UW 360. Ruesink studies how ocean acidification is affecting oyster growth and performance, providing critical information for oyster growers. Click here to watch the short feature that aired on UW 360.