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Associate Professor of Biology Mike McCormick moderated a panel discussion on “Changing Earth and Eco Systems in the Antarctic Peninsula” at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) national meeting held February 14-16, in Chicago.

Associate Professor of Biology Mike McCormick gave an invited talk at the New England regional meeting of the American Society for Microbiology at the University of Connecticut on Oct. 25. McCormick discussed the work that he and his students are conducting at Green Lake in Fayetteville, N.Y.

Hamilton College is situated roughly 30 miles from Green Lake, a rare meromictic lake in Onondaga Country.  This lake is considered special due to the segregated nature of its water and multiple base layers of sediment that have remained preserved over the past thousands of years.  This summer, Kevin Boettger ’14 and Matt Brzustoski ’15 studied the lake with Associate Professor of Biology Michael McCormick to identify its unique characteristics and features.

Associate Professor of Biology Michael McCormick directed a group of four students on an adventure to Antarctica in 2012. They were part of a LARISSA expedition led by Principal Investigator Eugene Domack, the J. W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies.  Andrew Seraichick ’13 was one of the students who explored and sampled the ocean waters that are now accessible after the Larson A ice shelves disintegrated.

Alex Thompson ’13 has an impressive resume, particularly for someone who has only just completed his undergraduate degree. He’s worked on multiple research projects in chemistry and biology, spent a summer working at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, interned at biotechnology company Genentech in San Francisco, co-authored a paper in The Journal of Organic Chemistry, and co-authored a chapter in the recently released book Hetereocyclic Chemistry in Drug Discovery. This fall he’ll be adding to his impressive list of accomplishments and beginning a Ph.D. program in chemistry at Yale University.

Associate Professor of Biology Mike McCormick co-organized a symposium on “Carbon Dynamics and the Biogeochemical Cycling of Major and Minor Elements” at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society held April 7-11 in New Orleans.

The Antarctic Sun, a publication of the U.S. Antarctic Program, featured research performed by Eugene Domack, the J.W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies, and Associate Professor of Biology Michael McCormick as part of the LARISSA (LARsen Ice Shelf System Research, Antarctica) Project.  Domack is the principal investigator on the LARISSA program and, while at Hamilton, has conducted marine geology expeditions to Antarctica for the last 25 years.

Professor of Biology Jinnie Garrett presented a poster, “High Resolution Characterization of Bacterial Diversity and Geochemistry in a Meromictic Lake (Green Lake, Fayetteville, NY)” on her research done in collaboration with Associate Professor of Biology Michael McCormick, at a meeting sponsored by the Department of Energy, March 20-24, at the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, Calif. 

What does one pack for a trip to an Antarctic island?  Items not found on a typical packing checklist, as some Hamilton students learned this week when they prepared for an expedition to Robertson Island.  It’s week two of the Antarctica 2012 research expedition, aboard the ship Nathaniel B. Palmer for Natalie Elking ’12, Manique Talaia-Murray ’12, Andrew Seraichick ’13, Elizabeth Bucceri ’11 and Associate Professor of Biology Mike McCormick. 

An international team of scientists - including Associate Professor of Biology Mike McCormick, alumna Elizabeth Bucceri ’11 and students Natalie Elking ’12, Manique Talaia-Murray ’12 and Andrew Seraichick ’13 - have embarked on the third cruise of the LARISSA program aboard the U.S. Antarctic Program ship Nathaniel B. Palmer.