Tag Archives: Biology

In Gratitude For Intellectual Exploration

After graduating from EMU with a biology degree in 1976, Leland Ropp went straight to medical school, on to residency and then a 25-year career as a pedi­atric emergency physician in the Detroit area. (Dealing with frightened parents in the ER was often harder than dealing with their sick children, he reports.) He’s always treasured ...More

Anne Showalter: Corporate attorney in Chapel Hill, N.C.

After graduating from EMU in 1990, Anne Showalter, who majored in biology and English, spent the summer preparing for medical school at the University of Virginia (UVa) in nearby Charlottesville. Soon, however, she changed her mind. “A few weeks before medical school was supposed to start, I got cold feet,” she said. “I wanted to ...More

Extra innings needed to fix Suter Center for all purposes

When editor-in-chief Bonnie Price Lofton invited me to comment on the status of the Suter Science Campaign exactly one year ago, I opted for the venerable baseball metaphor – “we are rounding third base and heading for home!” At that time, we needed to raise $1.6 million in new commitments to reach our goal of ...More

Dozens of alumni are faculty or staff at JMU and Bridgewater College

When Conley McMullen graduated from EMU in 1978, the aspiring botanist decided there would be no finer profession than to become a “gentleman scholar” at his alma mater like his mentors, Claire Mellinger and Gary Stucky. McMullen had taken just about every class that Mellinger taught, from plant taxonomy and physiology, through general ecology and ornithology. ...More

Begun by alumni, the Farmers Market shapes community

Margaret Wenger Johnson ’69 held out a mason jar of grape juice. “It’s rich,” Samuel Johnson (class of ’75) said. Margaret nodded and smiled, like they’d discovered it bubbling from the ground — instead of steaming in a steel vat. The Concord grapes that she had methodically de-stemmed with Marjorie Nafziger ’74, MA ’97 (counseling), grew ...More

Research Probes Mechanisms of Aging

Why and how do we get old? This is one of the most basic and unknown questions of biology, says Jeffrey M. Copeland, PhD, assistant professor of biology at EMU. Joining him to study the topic is junior biology/music double major, Charise Garber of Lancaster, Pa. “We’re using fruit flies,” explains Garber, “because their genes ...More