Events

8 October 2006
The Center for Environmental Research, Informatics and Art (CERIA) celebrated the opening of our building. Demonstrations of research and creative projects were featured in and around the CERIA building on the main campus (where the old bookstore was housed) See the collage of photos from the event. The first photo of the ribbon cutting features (l-r) Christopher Mead, Dean College of Fine Arts; Reed Dasenbrock, Provost; Terry Yates, VP for Economic Developement and Research and Vera Norwood, Interim Chair College of Arts and Sciences. All photos are courtesy of Mike Bogan, USGS Curator Emeritus.

News

June 2007
The Museum of Southwestern Biology hosted the 2007 American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) June 6-10, 2007.

September 2006
Professor Don Duszynski, Director of the MSB, has been selected as the 2006 Distinguished Alumnus of the Department of Biology at Colorado State University. Don will receive this honor at an award ceremony later this year, when he will give a retrospective lecture about his career in science and research over the last 35 years.

In addition, Dr. Duszynski has been invited as one of 25 international scientists, to serve on a Sloan Foundation workshop To Resolve Microorganism Taxonomic and Cultural Collection Problems Arising from the New Barcoding Initiatives. The workshop will be held in Portland, Maine, November 6-7, 2006. DNA barcoding is a methodology for identifying species using a short DNA sequence. It is purported to be a reliable, inexpensive and easily accessible tool for both taxonomic specialists and non-specialists (e.g., government officials, professionals in health and agriculture). There are several issues and problems, however, that need to be addressed before barcoding can be instituted, especially for single-celled microorganisms (protists). Linking barcodes to accurately identified species represents a large hurdle that must be overcome. The Sloan Foundation workshop will address problems that arise as species DNA barcodes are generated by protists.

August 2006
The UNM Biology Department has concluded the search for two new tenure-track faculty positions; Christopher Witt will replace David Ligon as Curator of the MSB Bird Division and Kelly Miller will replace Manuel Molles as the Curator of Arthropods. Both David and Manuel retired in 2005 after long and distinguished careers in biology.

May 2006
The UNM Museum of Southwestern Biology and the USGS Arid Lands Field Station co-hosted the joint meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections and the Natural Science Collections Alliance, May 23-27, 2006. The meeting theme was "The Road to Productive Partnerships."

08 August 2005
This month's Geoworld Magazine,"The Business Monthly for the GIS Industry," includes a feature article on the Biogeomancer Project. Biogeomancer is an international consortium developing an online workbench, web services, and desktop applications that will provide georeferencing for collectors, curators and users of natural history specimens. The project is co-managed by John Wieczorek from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley and MSB's Chris Frazier. MSB's Biogeomancer team includes Teri Neville, GIS coordinator for Natural Heritage New Mexico, and Tomas Giermakowski, collections manager for the Division of Amphibians and Reptiles.

02 August 2005
Today's Albuquerque Journal includes an article "World on Web: Database Holds Plants, Animals" with great pictures of the Herbarium collection manager, Jane Mygatt, and the Herbarium specimen imaging system. The article follows Yale graduate student Stephen Smith's usage of the INRAM Gateway to New Mexico Biodiversity to find honeysuckle specimens in the UNM Herbarium that he needs for his dissertation work.

17 May 2004
MSB Highlights, a posting of divisional and program developments is released.

© David Lightfoot