Karina Scavo Lord and Leah Williams Receive 2022 Belamarich Award
This year, the Department of Biology is excited to announce that we have selected two winners for the 2022 Belamarich Award. This award is given annually to a recent PhD candidate for their outstanding doctoral dissertation completed in the Department of Biology.
 Dr. Karina Scavo Lord of the Finnerty Lab was selected for her doctoral dissertation in Biology titled “The Importance of Mangroves as Coral Habitat in a Deteriorating Ocean – An Ecological, Demographic, and Genomic Research Program on Model Mangrove Corals in the Genus Porites.” The committee was impressed by Karina’s extensive research productivity, the originality of her work, her research independence throughout her PhD, and the impact of her research on population ecology, marine biology, and conservation science. The committee also admired Karina’s mentoring record and the outreach activities she engaged in during her graduate career here at BU. More information about her research is below.
Mangroves are widely regarded as unsuitable habitats for corals, and for this reason, very few studies have characterized coral populations in mangroves. However, as coral reefs decline rapidly, an emerging thread of research suggests that mangroves may be critical to the survival and evolution of corals, as well as the resilience of coral reefs. Karina’s dissertation research has endeavored to fill this critical gap in our knowledge and build a research program to investigate the role of mangrove habitats as important habitat for coral survival and evolution. Using model mangrove corals in the genus Porites, she combined longitudinal field work, population modeling, and genomics to study their survival, growth, and reproduction, as well as how key coral traits vary between reef and mangrove habitats. This research builds on the growing recognition that mangroves, as well as other reef-associated habitats, may prove critical to the survival of reef corals and the resilience of coral reefs. Karina will be continuing this research on mangrove corals in her NSF postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is studying the mechanisms by which a predominately clonal (genetically poor) mangrove coral population can display phenotypic variation and respond to changing environmental conditions. |
 Dr. Leah Williams of the Gilmore Lab was selected for her doctoral dissertation in Biology titled “Structure, Activity, and Biology of Transcription factor NF-κB in Evolutionary Basal Organisms: Insights into the Origins of Immune Regulation.” The committee was impressed by Leah’s immense research productivity (as evidenced through her publication record), the technical complexity of her work, and the impact of her work across the fields of molecular, evolutionary, and environmental biology. The committee also admired Leah’s leadership, teaching, and mentoring record, as well as her outstanding level of service to the department. More information about her research is below.
Despite the approximately 100,000 publications on the immune-related transcription factor NF-κB, very little data exists on this important transcription factor in organisms other than mammals and flies. In her dissertation, Leah examined the structure, activity, and biology of the transcription factor NF-κB in three basal phyla to explore the extent of conservation with more derived organisms as well as phylum-specific properties. These data suggest that the mechanism as well as level of activation of NF-κB in basal organisms is different from what is observed in higher organisms. Overall, these data represent the first functional characterization of NF-κB signaling proteins in an endangered coral, in any organisms basal to cnidarians (i.e., an evolutionary important sponge), and any organism outside the Kingdom Animalia (protists). These findings suggest that these seemingly simple organisms contain conserved innate immune-like pathways that may be regulated by NF-κB and provide information about the evolution, ecology, and diversification of this biologically important transcription factor. Leah is currently a Scientist at CRISPR Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA working in Clinical Development on their Immuno-oncology programs. |
As in previous years, there will be a Belamarich Award Night to celebrate our award winners. The night includes a seminar given by the awardees, a brief ceremony, and a reception. The Seminar will be held on Monday, October 24th at 4:00pm in BRB 113. The Award Ceremony will take place immediately after, with the Reception following down the hall in BRB 117, from ~5:00pm-6:00pm. We are honored to have the Belamarich family joining us again to celebrate this year’s award winners.
We look forward to seeing everyone at Belamarich Award Night!
More about the Belamarich Award:
Frank A. Belamarich joined the BU Biology Department in 1963 as an assistant professor where he quickly gained international recognition for his research in the field of comparative hemostasis, the process of blood clotting. Throughout his tenure at BU he was a popular teacher of a core course in cell biology which he developed. Belamarich maintained research laboratories in Boston as well as at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole in Falmouth, MA as part of the BU Marine Program.
Congratulations, Karina and Leah!