2025 Highlights
Dr. Frank Fish. Biology, co-authored a talk, “Effects of flipper design on humpback whale turning
performance” that was presented at the 25th Biennial Meeting of the Society of Marine
Mammalogy, November 11-15, 2024 in Perth, Australia.
Dr. Frank Fish. Biology, presented “Delta winged shaped upper jaw acts as a control surface to stabilize
whales during lunge-feeding” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative
and Comparative Biology, in Atlanta GA, on January 3-7 (2025).
Dr. Frank Fish. Biology, presented “Porpoising and plunge diving at an acute angle” at the Annual
Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, in Atlanta GA, on
January 3-7 (2025).
Dr. Frank Fish. Biology, co-authored a presentation, “Analyzing turning dynamics of a sea turtle-inspired
robot on terrestrial environments” with Nnamdi Chikere and Dr. Yasmin Ozkan-Aydin
of Notre Dame University.
Sophia Sebo, Biology graduate student, presented “The hydrodynamics of the streamlined
body of sea lions” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative
Biology, in Atlanta GA, on January 3-7 (2025). The paper was co-authored with Drs. Frank Fish of West Chester University, Duncan Irschick of the University of Massachusetts, and
Megan Leftwich of George Washington University.
Sophia Sebo, Biology graduate student, presented a talk, “Hydrodynamic roles of fore
and hindflippers in harp and harbor seals” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for
Integrative and Comparative Biology, in Atlanta GA, on January 3-7 (2025). The paper
was co-authored with Drs. Frank Fish of West Chester University, and Megan Leftwich of George Washington University.
David Kramer, Biology graduate student, presented a talk, “Comparative hydrodynamics
of the shells of aquatic, semi-aquatic and terrestrial turtles” at the Annual Meeting
of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, in Atlanta GA, on January
3-7 (2025). The paper was co-authored with Drs. Frank Fish of West Chester University, and Kramer-Bottiglio of Yale University.
2024 Highlights
Dr. Pisciotta and former WCU BS student Jessica Buchser presented a poster titled "Antimicrobial
Efficacy of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles on Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus
aureus ESKAPE Pathogen Coculture"at the American Society for Microbiology’s (ASM)
National Microbe Research Conference on June 15th 2024 in Atlanta, Ga.
Dr. Pisciotta and former WCU BS students Jessica Buchser and Kevin Phillips presented a poster
titled "Influence of Blood Proteins on Copper Silicone Nanoparticle-Mediated Inhibition
on Staphylococcus aureus" at the American Society for Microbiology’s (ASM) National
Microbe Research Conference on June 14th 2024 in Atlanta, Ga.
Dr. Pisciotta presented an invited talk titled "Smallpox at Valley Forge: Washington’s Campaign
Against an Infectious Killer" to the Chester County History Center on April 23, 2024
in West Chester, Pa.
Dr. Frank Fish, Biology, presented a keynote talk titled, “ Whales to Windmills” for Engineering
Tomorrow apart of their Lab Day Event on Renewable Energy: Building Solar & Wind Systems
(November 13, 2024). Engineering Tomorrow is a nonprofit educational group that offers
interactive virtual engineering labs to schools, teachers, and high school students.
From schools around the country, 2,458 students attended the presentation live, and
7,265 students registered to receive a recording of the presentation.
Dr. Oné Págan published the following paper: Ruble M, Simpson N, Smith B, Adeshina W, Snyder E,
Pagán OR. Cotinine influences the effect of high and low nicotine concentrations on planarian
motility differently. Neurosci Lett. 2024 Oct 15;841:137955. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2024.137955.
Dr. Oné Págan published the following paper: Kakuturu J, O'Brien M, Pagán OR. Schild Analysis of the Interaction between Parthenolide and Cocaine Suggests an
Allosteric Relationship for Their Effects on Planarian Motility. Biomolecules. 2024
Sep 18;14(9):1168. doi: 10.3390/biom14091168.
Dr. Oné Págan published the following paper: Pagán OR. The complexities of ligand/receptor interactions: Exploring the role of molecular
vibrations and quantum tunnelling. Bioessays. 2024 May;46(5):e2300195. doi: 10.1002/bies.202300195.
Dr. Frank Fish, biology, was a co-author on a paper, Robots that evolve on demand, that was published
on-line in Nature Reviews Materials (2024), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-024-00711-z.
The paper was co-authored with Dr. Rebecca Kramer-Botttiglio of Yale University.
Dr. Frank Fish, biology, received a three-year grant from the Office of Naval Research on “Towards
a Deep Water Amphibious Robotic Turtle” that is in collaboration with Yale University.
Dr. Frank Fish, biology, received a three-year grant from the Office of Naval Research on “Unmanned
Biorobotic Systems in High Energy Environments: Biologic To Robotic Navigation Through,
and Transitions From, The Littoral Zone. This grant is in collaboration with George
Washington University and Drexel University.
Dr. Frank Fish, biology, co-authored an invited presentation “Locomotion and transitions of an amphibious
system: Biologic to robotic” at the ONR Bio-Inspired Autonomous Systems Review, May
22-24, 2024 at George Washington University, Washington, DC. The presentation was
co-authored with Dr. Megan Leftwich of George Washington University and Drs. James
Tangorra and Harry Kwatny of Drexel University.
Dr. Frank Fish, biology, co-authored an invited presentation “Autonomous environmental transitions
of an amphibious turtle inspired robot” at the ONR Bio-Inspired Autonomous Systems
Review, May 22-24, 2024 at George Washington University, Washington, DC. The presentation
was co-authored with Dr. Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio of Yale University.
Dr. Frank Fish, biology, received a grant from the Office of Naval Research for $379,961 to work
on the biomechanics of sea turtles and tortoises for the development of an amphibious
bio-robotic autonomous underwater vehicle with Yale University.
Dr. Frank Fish, biology, received a grant from the Office of Naval Research for $299,962 to work
on the biomechanics of sea lions and other pinnipeds for the development of an amphibious
bio-robotic autonomous underwater vehicle with George Washington University and Drexel
University.
Dr. Manu Ramalho recently appeared on the Matters Microbial podcast, episode #32, discussing "What's
bugging ants, microbially speaking?" You can listen to the episode here: https://www.microbe.tv/mm/mm-032/
Biology graduate student Amanda Munshower won third place in the Graduate Poster Presentations category at the Mid-Atlantic
Ecological Society of America Conference for her research titled "Evolving Partnerships:
A Multi-Stage Analysis of Host-Microbe Dynamics in the Life Cycle of the Spotted Lanternfly
(Lycorma delicatula)." The presentation was co-authored by Dr. Manu Ramalho, Dr. Jennifer Chandler, and Dr. Teresa Donze-Reiner. Go Team!
Dr. Frank Fish, biology, co-authored a published research paper, “Diving dinosaurs? Caveats on the
use of bone compactness and pFDA for inferring lifestyle” in PloS ONE 19(3): e0298957
(2024). [https://doi.org/10.1371/](https://doi.org/10.1371/) journal.pone.0298957
. The article was co-authored with Dr. Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago and
Dr. Donald Henderson of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology.
David A. Kramer (Biology graduate student) published the scientific research paper, “Thrust production
and chordal flexion of the flukes of bottlenose dolphins performing tail stands at
different efforts” in the Journal of Experimental Biology 227: jeb246228 (2024). The
paper was co-authored with Dr. Maura Sheehan (Health, emerita) and Dr. Frank Fish (Biology).
Dr. Frank Fish, biology, presented a guest lecture “Control surfaces of marine mammals” to the Functional
Anatomy class in the Biology Department of Texas A&M university, Corpus Christi on
February 23, 2024.
Dr. Frank Fish, biology, published the research article, Spin-leap performance by cetaceans is influenced
by moment of inertia.,” in the _Journal of Experimental Biology_ vol. 227: jeb 246433
(2024). The article was co-authored with Dr. Anthony Nicastro, Physics Emeritus, Kaitlyn Cardenas, former WCU biology undergraduate, Dr. William Gough, former WCU graduate student, Dr. Judy St. Leger of SeaWorld, and Drs. Paolo Segre,
Shirel Kahane-Rapport, and Jeremy Goldbogen of the Hopkins Marine Lab of Stanford
University.
Dr. Frank Fish, biology, presented an invited seminar, “Creation of Innovative Technologies Based
on Bio-Inspired Designs from Marine Animals” to aerodynamics students in the University
of Washington Aeronautics and Astronautics Department on January 3, 2024.
Dr. Manu Ramalho and other collaborators have published a new paper on Wolbachia and turtle ants!
Check out the paper here: https://doi.org/10.3390/biology13020121
Highlights Archive