This fall the department welcomed eight new students to the graduate program, who have already joined their distinguished colleagues by receiving various awards and distinctions. The picture features almost 40 graduate students at our annual Awards Dinner, celebrating their accomplishments and more than $250k awarded to Biology students in the 2015-16 academic year from departmental endowments alone. We continue to strive for an inclusive and welcoming departmental culture that recognizes and encourages individual differences, fosters the constructive expression of ideas, and that promotes shared values of intellectual curiosity collegiality, and personal responsibility. With the upcoming 2016-17 awards cycle and recruitment, our graduate program is looking forward to another year of students developing creative projects and partnerships to explore the broad field of biology.