Hannah Aichelman Receives 2023 Belamarich Award

Dr. Hannah Aichelman of the Davies Lab was selected as the winner of the 2023 Belamarich Award for her doctoral dissertation in Biology titled “Exploring Coral Symbiosis Under Climate Change Stress Across Spatial and Temporal Scales.” This award is given annually to a recent PhD candidate for their outstanding doctoral dissertation completed in the Department of Biology. The selection committee was impressed by Hannah’s deft use of diverse techniques from physiological experiments to genomics to address her research questions, which resulted in an impressive body of work already having an impact in her research community. The committee also appreciated Hannah’s extensive outreach efforts, strong mentoring record, and generous service to the Department. More information about her research is below.

Coral reefs, along with the biodiversity and communities they support, are threatened globally. While research efforts have increased our ability to understand and predict coral bleaching events, fundamental questions remain surrounding how genetic diversity of the coral symbiosis and interactions with its environment can drive resilience or resistance under climate change. Hannah’s dissertation research endeavored to fill this knowledge gap, and she built a research program that combined genomics, physiology, and lab experiments to investigate stress tolerance across both temperate and tropical coral species. This research provides valuable insights into the phenotypic and genotypic mechanisms that contribute to coral success in a changing climate.

Hannah is continuing her research career at BU as a postdoctoral scholar co-advised by Dr. Sean Mullen and Dr. Sarah Davies. She is leveraging whole genome sequencing to understand the genetic underpinnings of mimicry in butterflies, while still spending some time exploring coral reefs with the Davies Lab.

As in previous years, there will be a Belamarich Award Night to celebrate our award winner. The night includes a seminar given by the awardee, a brief ceremony, and a reception. The Seminar will be held on Monday, October 30th at 4:30pm in BRB 113. The Award Ceremony will take place immediately after, with the Reception following down the hall in BRB 117, from ~5:30pm-6:30pm. We are honored to have the Belamarich family joining us again to celebrate this year’s award winner.

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, Hannah!