Dr. Anne Allison joined the biology department at Mary Baldwin College (MBC) in 2009 as an assistant professor. She earned her BA in biology from Harvard University in 1998. After college she spent several years teaching high school biology and working as a laboratory technician. In 2000, Dr. Allison entered graduate school at the University of Virginia (UVA). She worked in the lab of Dr. David Allis and used the model organism Tetrahymena thermophilia to study the histone variant H2A.Z. Her work was supported by a training grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and she earned her masters degree in 2002. Dr. Allison also did her doctoral work at UVA in the lab of Dr. Mitch Smith. There she discovered genetic interactions for histone H2A.Z in budding yeast. The title of her doctoral thesis is “Genetic Analysis of the Histone Variant H2A.Z in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.” From 2006-2007 Dr. Allison investigated chromosome dynamics in C. elegans, a tiny soil-dwelling worm and powerful model organism. These studies were done in the laboratory of Dr. Abby Dernburg at the University of California, Berkeley. Returning to UVA in 2007, Dr. Allison joined the research team of Dr. James Casanova. She earned an NIH postdoctoral fellowship, and she studied how human Arf proteins regulate intracellular transport. From 2007-2009, Dr. Allison also taught biology in the evenings at Piedmont Virginia Community College.
Dr. Allison’s career so far has included presenting her research at regional, national, and international conferences. She has given talks at the NIH and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and presented posters at the American Society for Cell Biology. She published peer-reviewed articles in Nature Signaling Gateway and the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Currently Dr. Allison continues to explore how the human Arf6 protein functions in cancer pathogenesis using human tissue culture as a model. The current aim of her research is to determine how Arf6 and another protein called b1 integrin facilitate cell migration and metastasis. Her work is supported by a generous grant from the Commonwealth Health Research Board of Virginia. She mentors three undergraduate researchers and welcomes interested students to inquire about research opportunities.
Dr. Allison teaches lecture and labs for introductory cell and molecular biology (Biology 111: The Principles of Life), labs for introductory organismal biology (Biology 112: Diversity of Life), Biology of Women (Biology/Women’s Studies 252), and Senior Seminar (Biology 400-401). Dr. Allison taught genetics (Biology 222) in spring 2011. Beginning in 2011-2012, Dr. Allison will teach MBC101 in the fall of 2011 and part of Junior Seminar (Biology 381) in the spring of 2012.
Dr. Allison is a Spencer Center faculty fellow. The Spencer Center for Global and Civic Engagement is dedicated to local and world-wide community outreach. To learn more, please visit www.mbc.edu/spencer_center.
Dr. Allison enjoys reading, writing, playing sports (especially when it involves being outside), travel, arts and crafts, and spending time with her husband, Timothy Errington, and their exuberant American Foxhounds, Linda and Abel.
I have always been an inquisitive person, and have disliked not knowing the answers to puzzling questions. To that end, I have always endeavored to learn as much as I can about a wide variety of subjects. As an undergraduate, I focused on the organismal aspects of biology. I received my BS in biology from Virginia Tech in 1993 and immediately entered graduate school (also at Virginia Tech) to study blue jay food caching. While there I was able to definitively demonstrate that blue jays, an important dispersal agent for large-nut trees like oaks, remember with great precision the location of their own caches and have great difficulty finding the caches of other jays. After receiving my master’s degree in biology in 1996, I spent a summer conducting songbird surveys in the backwoods of West Virginia. I then went on to pursue my PhD in zoology at the University of Maryland, College Park. While there I studied predator-prey relationships in migratory songbirds. I specifically focused on the spatial allocation of parental care by red-eyed vireos, blue-headed vireos & hooded warblers and how it is affected by their differing extra-pair mating strategies (contrary to popular belief most bird species are not faithful for life).
Since that time I have continued to work with red-eyed vireos and have been able to extend a basic study of behavior into a long-term study of their territory fidelity and survivorship at the Hemlock Hill Biological Research Area in Pennsylvania. In the past year I have expanded this study to include sites in Augusta County, Virginia. I have also begun to include an annual survey of blood parasites found among these birds in these areas.
I greatly enjoy teaching students about science and biology. I particularly delight in those “Aha!” moments when students recognize the interconnectedness of all the things they have been learning about. The environment afforded us here at Mary Baldwin College is key to that enjoyment. The hands-on learning format of our lab courses offers students the opportunity to not only hear about how biological processes work in lecture, but also see for themselves how they work.
In my spare time I enjoy playing with the kids, home renovation projects, hiking with the dogs, and music!
pdeeble@mbc.edu
www.mbc.edu/faculty/pdeeble/
Dr. Paul Deeble joined the biology department at Mary Baldwin College in 2002 as an assistant professor. Dr. Deeble earned his BS in biology/vertebrate physiology from Pennsylvania State University in 1996. While at Penn State, he worked as a co-op research scientist for Burroughs Wellcome and Glaxo Wellcome in Research Triangle Park, NC. Dr. Deeble worked in the Molecular Pharmacology Division and the focus of his studies was Alzheimer’s disease. He then earned a PhD in molecular medicine and microbiology in 2002 from the University of Virginia. The title of Dr. Deeble’s dissertation was Mechanisms of Neuroendocrine Differentiation in Prostate Cancer Leading to Paracrine Growth Stimulation. Dr. Deeble presented his work at numerous regional, national, and international conferences including the Fifteenth Annual Meeting on Oncogenes and Tumor Suppressors and a keystone symposium on advances in human breast and prostate cancer. He has published multiple peer-reviewed articles in research journals such as Cancer Research, Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Molecular and Cellular Biology. While completing his graduate work in the Cancer Center at UVA, Dr. Deeble was a finalist for the Michael J. Peach Outstanding Graduate Student Award, and he served as the Paul and Virginia Wright ARCS Scholar after receiving a fellowship from the ARCS Foundation. Dr. Deeble completed his postdoctoral training at the University of Virginia Cardiovascular Center, performing research focused on the abnormal vasculature that forms in many tumors. During this time, he was an adjunct assistant professor of biology at Piedmont Virginia Community College teaching lectures and labs in anatomy and physiology. Dr. Deeble has maintained professional memberships in the American Association of Cancer Research, the North Atlantic Vascular Biology Organization, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Since coming to Mary Baldwin College, he has taught classes in a variety of sub-disciplines in biology including anatomy, physiology, genetics, human health and medicine, and electron microscopy. Dr. Deeble maintains a research interest in the role of neuroendocrine (NE) cells in prostate cancer progression and recently was awarded a research grant through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to study apoptosis in NE cells in various stages of prostate cancer. Seniors within the biology department work with Dr. Deeble on this grant to complete their senior thesis research requirement. Dr. Paul Deeble was recently honored by Who’s Who Among America’s College and University Teachers for the 2005-2006 academic year. He also serves as a textbook reviewer for Thomson Delmar Learning, and has reviewed multiple textbooks and online modules in anatomy and physiology. In addition to Dr. Deeble’s love for teaching, he enjoys road and mountain biking, playing soccer, serving as a run leader for “Squirrels on the Run”, and participating in the American Cancer Society Relay for Life. Most of all Dr. Deeble enjoys spending time with his wife, Dr. Jennifer Visger, and daughter Zoe.
Eric Jones — a field naturalist and a muddy boots plant ecologist. I have spent the past 20 years seeking out the flora of Augusta County, Virginia. At present I have photographed over 250 species of plants within the county representing over 65 families of vascular plants. These images have been optimized for viewing on the Web and have been incorporated into an e-book /Web site . Augusta County runs from the crest of the Blue Ridge across the valley to the top of Shenandoah Mountain 50 miles to the west. These ridges are sandstones and basalts and therefore do not neutralize acid rain, while the valley is limestone and therefore able to neutralize the acid runoff from the mountains. The county has everything from a wet prairie at an elevation of 1000 feet to relic forests and shale outcrops at elevations above 3,500 feet. The county contains two wilderness areas (Ramsey’s Draft and The Saint Mary’s Wilderness), a large section of the Washington Jefferson National Forest, and an extensive game management area on North Mountain. In short, I am located in an area with over 2,500 feet change in elevation, a full range of bedrock types, and every possible slope orientation.
In addition to the floral survey work, I am active in the Boy Scouts serving as the Conservation Director for the Stonewall Jackson Area Council, my primary responsibility being the 500 acre Camp Shenandoah. In this role I am working on reforestation and the establishment of warm season grasses and wildflowers. The goal of the restoration is the creation of breeding habitat for quail and other declining bird species. I also work in leadership training and serve as the program director for the summer camp. I have enjoyed working with the local ballet company, and play the Grandfather in The Nutcracker, Dr. Copellius in the ballet Copellia, and the Grandfather in Peter and the Wolf.
Lundy Pentz earned his BA and his PhD in cell and developmental biology from the Johns Hopkins University, where he also designed and taught an evening class and lab in introductory biology. His doctoral dissertation was on trophoblastic tolerance, the problem of why the mammalian fetus is not rejected by the mother’s immune system. He came to Mary Baldwin College in 1980 and since then has taught a number of biology courses and developed laboratory exercises based on his evening college experiences and collected in his The Biolab Book(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2nd ed. 1989). He has directed senior research projects on topics ranging from the immune response to cancer and the role of diesel exhaust in triggering allergies to the antibacterial properties of white tea and the levels of coliform bacteria in local streams. He serves the college as Associate Faculty Marshal and Division Coordinator of Division III (Math and Science) and in 2006 was named Carolyn Rose Hunt Distinguished Chair in the Natural Sciences. From 1986 to 1997 he taught in Mary Baldwin’s summer program for high school students, Young Women in Science, and directed the program for its last five years. In 1997 he became the first participant in the sabbatical program of the University of Virginia’s Center for Developmental Biology and has since then supervised senior projects using in situ RT-PCR to study renin gene expression in developing mouse kidney. In 1999 he began an ongoing summer commitment to the U.S. Army’s Breast Cancer Research Program as a scientific review administrator for a molecular biology grant review panel. Locally he serves on the Lewis Creek Watershed Advisory Committee and involves students in research projects concerning the pollution in this EPA Damaged Waterway. His hobbies include cooking, calligraphy, and model railroading.
