Achievement

Trainee Thomas Stewart published a paper with Dr. Melina Hale:

Stewart, T. S. and M. E. Hale. 2013. First description of a musculoskeletal linkage in an adipose fin: Innovations for active control in a primitively passive appendage. Proc. Roy. Soc. B. 280: 20122159.

This paper describes the first observed muscles actuating the adipose fin and suggests active functions of the adipose fin which has generally been considered passive and degenerate. Note that Hale is not Stewart's mentor but runs an IGERT lab in which he performed rotation research that was facilitated by the IGERT program.

Stewart also presented a single authored oral presentation at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology that included this work.

Stewart, T. A. (2013). Multiple origins of the adipose fin and the morphological diversification of novel vertebrate appendages. Integrative and Comparative Biology. 53:e208.