V O L UME 1
Volume
02
FA L L 2 010
Fall 2012
The
December 2012
In This Issue
1
Message from the Chair
2
Faculty Exchange
2-4
Faculty & Student
Accomplishments
4
Where are they now?
5
Spotlight: Recent Graduates
6
Spotlight: New Faculty
6-7
Student & Alumni News
8
News Shorts

Congratulations to Dr. Rosch for her promotion to Associate
Professor

Congratulations to Dr. Aruscavage and his wife Pam for the
arrival of their son Colten

Congratulations to Dr. Stone and his wife Dena for the arrival of
their son Preston
Message from the Chair
Contact Us
Greetings!! This is our second edition of the Leaflet!! We have a lot of news to share in this edition. This Fall we
are welcoming a new tenure-track faculty member, Dr. Christopher Habeck. Dr. Habeck received his Ph.D. in
Terrestrial Ecology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was most recently a Postdoctoral Researcher at
Michigan State University working on a landscape scale restoration project at the Savannah River
Site. Congratulations to Dr. Anne Zayaitz (a former member of the Biology Department) who has recently been
selected to be Dean of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences as part of a national search!
Biology Department faculty members have been very successful in securing grant
funding. Dr.'s Ryan and Sacchi are to be congratulated for their successful NSF STEM
grant entitled "Enrollment, Retention, and Success of High Ability Students in Two Fieldbased Interdisciplinary Science Programs" for $599,540. This grant funds scholarships
for incoming Freshmen in the Marine Science and the Environmental
Science programs. Dr.'s Aruscavage, Mapes, Ryan, and Stone successfully obtained a
Highmark Healthcare Grant to fund a KU program to better prepare students for
the MCAT exam and have been administering this program since Spring 2012. Dr.'s
Antoni, Mapes, Aruscavage, and Butler have been working on a grant-funded project to
assess scientific literacy among KU students. Biology faculty continue to have active faculty/student research
programs supported by grant funding. In the 2011-2012 academic year, eight Biology faculty members received
grant funding from the KU Research Committee to support faculty/student research.
Future editions of The Leaflet will continue to include news from faculty, students, emeriti, and alumni. We would
very much like to hear from you and would be happy to include your news in The Leaflet! Contact information for
submitting news to The Leaflet can be found on the last page of the newsletter.
Best wishes!!!
Carol C. Mapes
Chair of the Biology Department
PAGE 2
THE LEAFLET
Visitors from Yantai University
During the fall 2010 semester, the KU Biology
Department served as a host to a visiting faculty
member from Yantai University in China. Dr. Zhao
Zhenjun (pictured below) spent just over three weeks
at KU as part of a mutual faculty exchange between
the two universities. During his time at KU, Dr.
Zhao gave presentations on his research to students
in Microbiology, Senior Seminar, and Histology. He
also teamed up with his colleague Zhou Zhumei to
Zhao Zhenjun (L), Chris Sacchi (M), and Zhou Zhumei
(R) during their visit to Washington D.C.
Dr. Zhao Zhenjun receiving a farewell gift
give presentations on education and culture in China to
students in the Modern Languages, Elementary
Education, and History Departments. On the weekends
Dr. Zhao and Zhumei had the opportunity to investigate
some local areas of interest, including Hawk Mountain
Sanctuary and the Da Vinci Center, in addition to fitting
in visits to both New York City and Washington,
D.C. The faculty and students of the Biology Department
were pleased to have the opportunity to interact with
colleagues from our sister institution in Yantai.
Faculty Accomplishments of Note

Dr. Todd Underwood was voted an Elective Member of the American Ornithologists’ Union by his
peers in recognition of his significant contributions to the field of ornithology and service to the union.

Drs. Dan Aruscavage, Carol Mapes, Wendy Ryan, and Matthew Stone received a $13,075 grant from
the PASSHE Foundation. This grant, supported by Highmark Healthcare, will fund the development
of an academic program designed to improve MCAT scores and acceptance rates of premedical
students.

Drs. Wendy Ryan and Chris Sacchi received a $599,540 grant from the National Science Foundation for
their project entitled "Enrollment, Retention, and Success of High Ability Students in Two Field-based
Interdisciplinary Science Programs.”
THE LEAFLET
PAGE 3
Kutztown Students Well Represented at CPUB
Over the last two spring semesters Kutztown
students have travelled to western PA to represent
the Biology Department at the annual meeting of
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania University
Biologists (CPUB). In 2011, students and faculty
members travelled to California University. The
2012 meeting was held at Slippery Rock
University. Despite the distance from Kutztown,
the Biology Department was well represented, with
9 and 11 students presenting their research at the
2011 and 2012 meetings, respectively. During the
2011, meeting three KU Students received awards.
Snider Desir was awarded the CPUB outstanding
student award. Jason Buckley was awarded 1st
place for his talk "Hypoxia in the western basin of
Lake Erie" (co-authored by Dr. Winslow). Nick
Wilgruber won 2nd place for his poster "Assessing
resilience in urban and forested streams by
experimental fish removal" (co-authored by Dr.
Jazzmyn McCoy displaying her poster at the 2012
CPUB annual meeting
Students and faculty at the 2011 CPUB meeting. Left
to right: Snider Desir, Shane Harvey, Elyse Brunstetter,
Dr. Stone, Dr. Roy, Nick Wilgrubber (top row), Dr.
Antoni and Calla Walinsky (bottom row). Not
pictured: Dr. Aruscavage, Dr. Baguinon, Dr. Todd
Underwood, Jason Buckley, Maggie Rushmore, Phil
Abdouche, and TJ Longmore
Roy). At the 2012 meeting, Jazzmyn McCoy won 1st
place for her poster “Catnip oil, a natural insect
repellent that has the potential to be safer and show
less birth defects than DEET” (co-authored with Dr.
Rosch). Chelsea Ray was the 2012 recipient of the
CPUB outstanding student award. In addition to the
student presentation awards, two KU students
received research grants from CPUB. KU biology
students Dan Moody and Chelsea Bressler were two
of six students from PASSHE institutions that
received grants from CPUB to fund their
independent research.
Recent Publications in the Department (*indicates former KU student)
Antoni, A., V.A. Patel, H. Fan, D.J. Lee, L.H. Graham*, C.L. Rosch, D. Spiegel, J. Rauch, and J.S. Levine
(2011) Macrophages from Lupus-prone MRL mice have a conditional signaling defect that leads to
dysregulated expression of multiple genes. Immunogenetics, 63:291–308.
Y. Arakane, M. C. Baguinon, S. Jasrapuria, S. Chaudhari, A. Doyungan, K.J. Kramer, S. Muthukrishnan, R.
W. Beeman (2011) Both UDP N-acetylglucosamine pyrophosphorylases of Tribolium castaneum are
critical for molting, survival and fecundity. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 41:42-50.
PAGE 4
THE LEAFLET
Publications continued:
Brown, W. P., A. L. Alexander*, D. Alexander, M. E. Zuefle, and T. J. Underwood. 2011. Estimating Ages
of House Wren nestlings based on body mass, wing chord length, and feather tract development
patterns. North American Bird Bander 36:101-110.
Rasmussen, J. L., T. J. Underwood, and S. G. Sealy. 2010. Functional morphology as a barrier to the
evolution of grasp-ejection in brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) hosts. Canadian Journal of
Zoology 88:1210-1217.
Setliff, G. P. and J. A. Anderson*. 2011. First record of the agave snout weevil, Scyphophorus acupunctatus
Gyllenhal (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Dryophthorinae), in Puerto Rico. Insecta Mundi 152: 1-3.
Underwood, T. J., and S. G. Sealy. 2011. Behavior of warbling vireos ejecting real and artificial cowbird
eggs. Wilson Journal of Ornithology 123:395-400.
Where are they now?
Matt Ryan (‘01)
Matt (Environmental Science–Biology 2001) is an Assistant
Professor in the Department of Crops and Soil Sciences at
Cornell University. Matt earned his Ph.D. at Penn State
University studying ecologically based weed management.
His interest in organic agriculture developed when Matt
worked at the Rodale Institute after graduating from
Kutztown in 2001. Matt’s current research focuses on
multi-criteria assessment of agroecosystems and how
management practices affect fuel use, labor, and production
efficiency. Dr. Chris Sacchi of the Biology Department ran
into Matt at the 2010 Ecological Society of America
Annual Meeting. When asked about his time at Kutztown,
Matt said that his “most memorable experiences were field
trips to the KU Ecoplot (now the Ronald R. Rhein
Environmental Study Area) and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
as part of his Environmental Biology and Plant Ecology
courses”.
Matt Ryan (L) and Chris Sacchi (R) at the 2010
Ecological Society of America annual meeting.
Club Activities
The University has several student clubs that are associated with the Biology Department. In
addition to the long-standing Biology Club, Marine Science Club, and the Health Careers
Society, there are three new clubs; the Botany Club, Herpetology Club, and the Pre-Veterinary
Club. Collectively, these clubs have organized and/or volunteered in field trips, beach cleanup
events, animal shelters, spay/neuter clinics, free dental care events, and many others valuable
activities.
THE LEAFLET
PAGE 5
Recent Graduates
Snider Desir (’11)
Snider was an exemplary student at Kutztown. He graduated
with a B.S. in biology and a biochemistry minor. At the 2011
annual meeting of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
University Biologists, Snider was awarded the CPUB
outstanding student award. Snider recently published some of
his research conducted while he was a student at KU. His coauthored article, "Pathological outcomes and strategies to
achieve optimal cancer control during robotic radical
prostatectomy in Asian-Indian men," was published in the
Indian Journal of Urology (Volume 27, Issue 3) in September
2011. The paper is based on research that Snider conducted
during the Travelers Summer Research Fellowship with the
Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York
City in summer 2010. Snider is currently a Ph.D. student in
the Integrative Biology and Physiology Program at
University of Minnesota Medical School.
Snider (R) receiving his award at the
CPUB Banquet
Jesse Anderson (‘10)
Jesse is currently working for the North
Carolina Department of Agriculture; Beneficial
Insects Division on a biological control project,
mass rearing
host
specific
predators
(Sasajiscymnus tsugae) of the invasive Hemlock
Woolly Adelgid. He also received training at
the Archibold Biological Research Station in
Florida on the use of a parasitic wasp (Cerceris
fumipennis) as a "bio-surveillance" method for
monitoring the invasive Emerald Ash
Borer. This wasp primarily feeds on buprestid
beetles, and has been shown to be more
effective in detecting infestations of the
Emerald Ash Borer than any other human
technology. In addition to those activities, Jessie
Photograph of Jesse at work for the NC Department
has been working as a field geologist for Full
of Agriculture. He is setting up a rearing cage
Metal Minerals in Asheboro, NC and
for Sasajiscymnus tsugae
volunteering at the Conservators' Center in
Mebane, NC. The Conservators' Center is a non-profit organization which focuses on conservation, education,
and rescue of exotic wildlife. Jesse co-authored a paper with KU professor Dr. Greg Setliff (see list of
publications).
PAGE 6
THE LEAFLET
Welcome Dr. Chris Habeck
We are happy to welcome Dr. Chris Habeck, a new tenure-track
faculty member, to the Biology Department in Fall 2012. Dr.
Habeck earned his B.S. in Wildlife Management from the
University of New Hampshire in 2005 and his Ph.D. in Zoology
from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2011. Dr.
Habeck’s research is focused on plant-consumer interactions as
influenced by plant chemistry, land-use history, and
environmental factors. His work integrates around a larger theme
of enhancing basic and applied ecological knowledge for the
conservation of plants and animals, habitat restoration, and
mitigation. At KU he teaches courses in ecology, introductory
biology, and environmental science. Dr. Habeck’s wife is a
certified diabetes educator and they have a 3 ½ year old daughter and two huskies. In his free time he enjoys
hiking in the mountains with his family, playing guitar, brewing beer, and looking under rocks.
Annual Student Awards:
Every spring semester the Biology Department offers three awards to recognize the hard work of our
outstanding students. *Represents a special one-time award to recognize exemplary service or academic
achievement.
2012 Student Award Recipients
Ronald Rhein Scholarship: Matt Martello
Beekey Award: Abby Rhone
CPUB Award: Chelsea Ray
*Outstanding Service Award: Megan Centeno
2011 Student Award Recipients
Ronald Rhein Scholarship: Melissa Bernhard
Beekey Award: Lindsay Confer
CPUB Award: Snider Desir
*Award for Academic Excellence: Leah Neiderer
Student & Alumni News:
 Erin (Gaffney) Azar - (EnvSci ‘06) is an engineering specialist at Teleflex Inc., a company that
provides medical devices to health care providers.
 Lori Bottiger (’12) attended the Medical Laboratory Sciences Program in the Lancaster General College
of Nursing and Health Sciences. She is starting a position at Evangelical Community Hospital as a
medical laboratory scientist.
 Elyse Brunstetter (’11) was hired as a chemist at Lancaster Laboratories in the microbial water sample
testing laboratory
THE LEAFLET
PAGE 7
 Monica Buckley ('11) has started a new position with Buckshires Corp., a quarantine station for animals
(mostly primates) coming into the country. They quarantine, care for, and conduct health examinations
of the animals before they head out to zoos, labs, schools, or other facilities.
 Jacob Charlton (’11) took a position at Lancaster General Hospital to work in their hematology and
chemistry labs
 Brian Chwiecko (’11) was accepted to medical school at Medical University of the Americas in the
West Indies
 Steve Holly (’12) was accepted into dental school at Oregon Health & Science University.
 Erin Miller (’11) was accepted into a physician assistant program at Misericordia University
 Chelsea Ray (’12) will start a research technician position at Mount Sinai School of Medicine
 Christine Rezabek (’10) was accepted into PCOM's Biomedical Sciences program
 Dan Rodgers (’11) was accepted into Drexel University’s MD program
 Kelly Stevens (’89) was distinguished with the Rothermel Award which recognizes alumni who
graduated more than 15 years ago for their notable and distinguished achievements in their
professional and personal life. Kelly is a manager of microbiology for General Mills and food safety
expert.
 Henry Swartz (’10) was accepted into PCOM and Drexel post-baccalaureate programs
 Kristin Wernosky (’03) received KU’s Early Career Excellence Award. This award recognizes alumni
who have graduated within 15 years and are attaining notable success in their chosen profession. Kristin
is a product development scientist at French’s Foods, a division of Reckitt Benckiser.
Pennsylvania Center for Environmental Education at KU
The Biology Department served as a satellite
office of the Pennsylvania Center for
Environmental Education (PCEE) from 20092011. The Pennsylvania Center for Environmental
Education was initially created by an Executive
Order of Governor Tom Ridge in 1997. PCEE
was established to promote and provide
environmental education and serve as an
environmental education resource for the state of
Pennsylvania. The main office of PCEE was
housed at Slippery Rock University starting in
1997. The KU PCEE Satellite Office was the first
PCEE satellite office to be opened, and it enabled
PCEE to have a greater presence in the eastern
Pictured (right to left) are Jodie Elstner, PCEE graduate
part of the state. While at KU, the satellite office
intern; Jennifer Haebel, PCEE undergraduate intern;
was staffed by several student interns under the
Joseph Forte, PCEE graduate intern; and Dr. Carol
direction of Dr. Carol Mapes. KU students who
Mapes
served as interns in the satellite office included
undergraduate students: Emily Sheridan, David Rustay, and Jennifer Haebel, as well as the following graduate
students: Eugene Konno, Jodie Elstner, and Joseph Forte. The KU PCEE Office provided outreach to
environmental education providers; publicized PCEE resources; and added information about
environmental/sustainable services, resources, and events to the PCEE web site. Unfortunately, the PA Center
for Environmental Education was forced to close its doors in October of 2011 due to the elimination of state
funding for PCEE as a result of budget cuts in the state of Pennsylvania.
PAGE 8
THE LEAFLET
Support Excellence in the Biology Department
We are seeking support for the Biology Department’s undergraduate
research fund. This program provides direct financial support for
undergraduate research projects in the department. This program is
critical to the success of our students by providing our high-caliber
students with valuable research experiences. If you would like to
provide a donation to support this program, mail your donation to the
Kutztown University Foundation at the address provided below.
Checks should be made out to the KU Foundation. To specifiy this
particular fund, include the coupon (below) with your payment.
KU Foundation
PO Box 151
Kutztown, PA 19530
610-683-1394
Please allocate this donation to:
Biology Department Student
Research Fund
# 15004
Cut along dotted line
Stay in Touch
Recently married, had a child, or landed a new job? Let us know! We are interested in how alumni are doing.
Please drop us a line and update us on your activities.
Department of Biology
Kutztown University
Kutztown, PA 19530
610-683-4307
If you have a contribution for The Leaflet or if you have any questions or comments about its content please
send them directly to Dr. Matt Stone (stone@kutztown.edu)