Science Research Roundup: August 2016

Richard D. Vierstra, the George and Charmaine Mallinckrodt Professor in the Department of Biology, was awarded a three-year, $949,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to undertake a project titled "Defining the Sumoylation System in Maize and its Roles in Stress Protection."

Jeffrey Zacks, professor and associate chair of the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, was awarded a two-year, $419,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health for research titled "Everyday Memory in Aging and Early Alzheimer's Disease."

Longfei Shu, a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Biology, received a three-year, $180,000 postdoctoral fellowship from the Life Sciences Research Foundation for a project titled "Proto-farming and the Carried Microbiome in a Social Amoeba" in the laboratory of David C. Queller, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology.

Stephanie L. Musgrave, a graduate student in physical anthropology, received a two-year, $25,000 National Science Foundation grant to support doctoral dissertation research on “The Ontogeny of Complex Tool Use in Great Apes,” under the direction of Crickette Sanz, associate professor of anthropology. The research aims to discover how chimpanzee tool traditions are passed through generations. Ultimately, the project hopes to assist in modeling the way social learning and sexual differentiation may have contributed to the emergence of complex technology in humans.

Debbie Yee, a graduate student in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, was awarded a three-year, $131,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study "Neural Mechanisms of Incentive Integration and Motivated Cognitive Control," under the direction of Todd Braver, professor of psychological and brain sciences.

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Crystal Gammon, grants and science writer in Arts & Sciences.