What's happening in Biology?
Take a look at our recent student achievements, events and activities!
updated August 23, 2022
August 2022
Congratulations to Hua Lab member Vanessa Sanchez who has been selected as a McNairs Scholar! The McNair Scholars Program is a federally funded program designed to prepare high achieving undergraduate students for admission into graduate schools to pursue advanced degrees. Way to go, Vanessa!

May 2022
The Biology Department is proud to announce undergrads Marcos Peech and Vanessa Sanchez were both selected as MESA/Genentech scholars to conduct summer research in the Hua Lab! Their projects focus on understanding chromosome organization in normal and diseased human cells. Congratulations Vanessa and Marcos!


May 2022
CSU-wide Grand Slam Competition - May 6th, 2022: Congratulations to Biology Graduate Student, Alyssa Cooper who won the Audience Choice for her presentation: "Food Fight! Prey Competition between Two Important Marine Predators". Excellent Job Alyssa!

May 2022
SSU Week of Research and Creativity: Congratulations to Biology major Isahar "Isa" Guerrero Diaz, for winning Best Poster at the Science Symposium event! Isa's poster title is "Sudden Oak Death: California Bay Laurel Symptom Trials by Fire and Earth”. Way to go, Isa!

May 2022

CSUPERB - President's Scholar Award: Congratulations to Biology student Christian Quintero who won the prestigious President's Scholar Award at CSUPERB for his project, "Chromosome organization of Bloom’s Syndrome cells" - Christian is the first SSU Biology student to win this award! Way to go, Christian!
April 2022
SSU Grand Slam Competition: Our Grad students came through again this year, taking first and second place and heading to the CSU-wide Grand Slam on May 6th!
Zane's winning presentation was titled, "Examining the effects of tree structure on wildfire using voxelized terrestrial remote sensing data and computational fluid dynamics fire modeling" and Alyssa's title was "Food Fight! Prey Competition between Two Important Marine Predators". Congratulations to All!
Photo Credit: Julieta Gomez and Abbey Dias (Hughes Lab)
![]() Zane Cooper |
![]() Alyssa Cooper |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
April 2022
SSU's Week of Research and Creativity - Science Symposium: Congratulations to Biology senior Belle Ehrmantraut! Her poster, "Degradation of Polylactic Acid Bioplastic by a Thermophilic Microbial Consortium" won the Ongaro Green Science Grand Prize award! Way to go Belle!
Photo credit: Belle Ehrmantraut, Michael Cohen

April 2022
Congratulations to Biology Grad Student, Elliott Smeds, who successfully defended his Masters Thesis: "Exploring the genomic basis of thermal adaptation in the willow leaf beetle Chrysomela aeneicollis"
This is first in-person Thesis Defense in over two years! Well done, Elliott!
