K Welch – Welch Lab

Welch Lab alum Jessica Phillips wins prestigious Rhodes Scholarship

K Welch — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 21:46:00 +0000

Congratulations to Welch Lab alumnus Jessica Phillips on winning a prestigious 2016 Rhodes Scholarship! Jessica will be heading off to Oxford in the UK to conduct her graduate studies.

Jessica was an undergraduate field researcher under the direct supervision of former Welch Lab postdoc Dr. Laura McKinnon. Jessica travelled to Churchill, Manitoba to study the ecology and physiology of Artic-nesting shorebirds.

Congratulations to Alex Myrka on successfully defending his MSc thesis

K Welch — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 18:30:00 +0000

Congratulations to lab member Alex Myrka on the successful defense of his MSc thesis! Alex has produced a fine quantitative examination of glucose transporter and fructolytic enzyme gene expression in hummingbirds in multiple tissues. He worked long and hard on this non-model organism to develop novel new Welch lab research tools. Readers can look forward to an exciting publication in the coming months!

Congratulations to Lily Hou on successfully defending her MSc thesis

K Welch — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 18:24:00 +0000

Master Lily Hou and a proud supervisor at UofT’s fall graduation.

Congratulations to lab member Lily Hou on the successful defense of her MSc thesis! Exam committee members unanimously agreed she did a stellar job and has amassed an impressive amount of data. Lily will be looking to publish her second paper shortly!

Dr. Laura McKinnon accepts position at York U’s Glendon College

K Welch — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 18:05:00 +0000

Congratulations to recent Welch Lab Banting Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Laura McKinnon on beginning her position as assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Glendon College, part of York University!

While the Welch lab will miss Dr. McKinnon, Glendon will gain a talented researcher, skilled teacher, and valued colleague. We look forward to watching Dr. McKinnon succeed in her new position and to a continuing collaboration between the Welch and McKinnon research programs!

Abstract accepted for presentation at Neuroscience 2015

K Welch — Thu, 25 Jun 2015 13:44:00 +0000

A presentation abstract by McGowan lab students Sophie St-Cyr and Sameera Abuaish entitled, “Maternal programming of adult behavior and metabolism by prenatal predator odor exposure” has been accepted for inclusion in a nanosymposium at Neuroscience 2015, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The work includes collaboration between the McGowan and Welch labs to understand how metabolic rate varies as a function of maternal programming in mice.

Congratulations to Sophie and Sameera!

Lab alumnus Amina Allalou admitted to MD program

K Welch — Wed, 13 May 2015 14:24:00 +0000

Congratulations to former undergraduate researcher and laboratory technician Amina Allalou on being admitted to the MD program at the University of Ottawa! Best of luck in your studies!

Chris Chen’s paper awarded “highly commended” status in the 2014 Haldane Prize competition

K Welch — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 16:57:00 +0000

The article authored by former MSc student Chris Chen (now studying for his PhD in the Hood Lab at York University) was awarded a status of “highly commended” (i.e. runner up) in the 2014 Haldane Prize competition sponsored by the journal Functional Ecology.

The Haldane Prize is awarded to the top-rated paper published each year in the journal authored by a new researcher (someone at the start of their research career).

Chris’ article is featured in the special issue commemorating the top articles published in each of the British Ecological Society’s journals in 2014.

Read the article here. Congrats to Chris!

New lab publication: “The cost of digestion in the fish-eating myotis (Myotis vivesi)”

K Welch — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 02:04:00 +0000

Illustration by Prof. Frank Fish, (C) JEB 2015

A new publication by Ken Welch and collaborators Aída Otálora-Ardila, Gerardo Herrera, and J. J. Flores-Martínez, from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México entitled, “The cost of digestion in the fish-eating myotis (Myotis vivesi)” has been published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

The article is featured in “Inside JEB,” written by Kathryn Knight and includes a wonderful comic illustrated by Professor Frank Fish (above)!

Read the “Inside JEB” featurette here. Read the article here.

For a bonus, here is a video of one of these ridiculously charming little bats chowing down!

New paper published online!

K Welch — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 04:01:00 +0000

Arising out of a symposium organized by Ken Welch and Dr. Marshall D. McCue of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, a paper titled, “Carbon stable-isotope tracking in breath for comparative studies of fuel use” was published online in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

The symposium was held in July of 2014 at the 3rd International Congress of Respiratory Science in Bonn, Germany. In addition to Drs. Welch and McCue, other symposium presenters, and co-authors of the paper, were Dr. François Péronnet of the University of Montreal, Dr. Kent Hatch of Long Island University, and Dr. Christian Voigt of the Liebniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, Germany. The symposium was generously supported by The Company of Biologists.

You can view the Early Online Access version here.

New lab publication: “Automated tracking of wild hummingbird mass and energetics over multiple time scales using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology”

K Welch — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 15:05:00 +0000

Lab member Lily Hou’s first publication: “Automated tracking of wild hummingbird mass and energetics over multiple time scales using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology” has been published in the Journal of Avian Biology.

The article is featured as the journal’s first cover image of the year, and is highlighted as an Editor’s Choice selection. The Editor’s Choice selection means that the article will be openly accessible for the rest of 2015.

The article describes a new method for automating the repeated measurement of hummingbird mass at multiple time scales. Specially outfitted feeder stations detect individual hummingbirds via implanted passive integrated transponders (PIT tags). Upon detection, the station records several measurements from an electronic balance upon which a perch is affixed. Using this approach, we show that we can obtain repeatable, reliable, accurate measures of hummingbird mass across individual visits, whole days, and even seasons.

Congratulations to Lily, and undergraduate co-author Michael Verdirame!