OSU zoology program grows young scientists

An Oklahoma State University zoology professor is teaching high school students how to do cutting-edge research. And thanks to his efforts, one of his young researchers won $12,000 at the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium. 

For two summers, Bartlesville High School student Nicole Biddinger has worked in assistant professor Puni Jeyasingh’s lab on the Stillwater campus. Under his guidance, Biddinger, along with OSU zoology senior Rosa Yorks, discovered that hatchlings resurrected from the eggs of a fresh-water crustacean that had been preserved in lake sediments for centuries differed in their thermal tolerance compared with those from eggs in more recent sediment strata.

“Understanding the reasons for such differences should foster better forecasting models of global environmental change,” Jeyasingh says.

Biddinger represented the Midwest at the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium in May in Dayton, Ohio. There, she competed against 240 high school students and won the $12,000 award for placing first nationally.

A recently concluded National Science Foundation-funded project to understand the evolutionary consequences of environmental change caused by humans supported her internship. 

“Brilliant high school and college students in Oklahoma benefit from and contribute to federally funded research in the state,” Jeyasingh says. 

Jeyasingh hopes his next project will launch another budding scientist’s career. Earlier this month, he was awarded a three-year, $439,041 grant from the NSF.

Jeyasingh and his team plan to observe the evolutionary consequences of manmade change in natural populations of Daphnia. The research team includes include professors Larry Weider from the University of Oklahoma and Mark Edlund from the Science Museum of Minnesota.

The OSU Department of Zoology is one of 24 departments in the College of Arts and Sciences. To learn more, visit cas.okstate.edu.