William T. Starmer

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William Thomas Starmer (born 1944) is an emeritus professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. [1] Starmer is known for his work on population genetics, specifically the ecological genetics of the interactions between cactus, yeast, and fruit flies (Drosophila). Species of Drosophila and yeast have been named in his honor.

Contents

Education

Starmer earned his B.S. (1964, 1967) and PhD at the University of Arizona, where he worked under Alan B. Humphrey. His 1972 PhD thesis was titled "Quantitative Gene Action in Cucurbita Species". [2] He briefly attended the Goethe-Institut in 1965.

Career

Starmer joined Syracuse University in 1977. Prior to this appointment, he worked as a research microbiologist at the University of California, a research professor at the University of Arizona, and a resident associate at the Argonne National Laboratory. [3] He has published more than 200 research articles.

Awards

In 2011, Starmer was elected as Fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. [4] [5]

In 1997, botanists Yuzo Yamada, Tetsuo Higashi, Susumu Ando and Kozaburo Mikata published Starmera which is a genus of fungi within the Phaffomycetaceae family and named in his honour. [6] [7] Then in 1998 C.A.Rosa & Lachance published Starmerella , a genus of fungi within the Saccharomycetales order. [8]

Related Research Articles

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Gerald Mayer Rubin is an American biologist, notable for pioneering the use of transposable P elements in genetics, and for leading the public project to sequence the Drosophila melanogaster genome. Related to his genomics work, Rubin's lab is notable for development of genetic and genomics tools and studies of signal transduction and gene regulation. Rubin also serves as a vice president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and executive director of the Janelia Research Campus.

<i>Cucurbita digitata</i> Species of vine

Cucurbita digitata is a species of flowering plant in the squash family known by the common names fingerleaf gourd and bitter squash. It is similar to Cucurbita californica, Cucurbita cordata, Cucurbita cylindrata, and Cucurbita palmata and all these species hybridize readily. These species form the only restricted xerophyte species group in the genus Cucurbita. Each member of this species group is native to the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico where they are relatively uncommon. Each group member is found in hot, arid regions with low rainfall. They prefer soil that is loose, gravelly, and well-drained. C. digitata is native to northern Baja California at higher elevations, northern Sonora, Mexico, southern Arizona, and southwestern New Mexico. The juvenile leaves of C. cylindrata, C. cordata, C. digitata, and C. palmata show a high degree of similarity, but their mature leaves are visibly different, as are their root structures. C. palmata and C. digitata are sympatric, with C. palmata separating the ranges of C. digitata at the juncture of Baja California, California, and Arizona. C. digitata fruits are clear green mottle that turns yellow at maturity, striped, and round.

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Phaffomyces is a genus of fungi within the Saccharomycetales order. It is placed within the Pichiaceae fungi family.

Starmera is a genus of fungi within the Saccharomycetales order. It is placed within the Phaffomycetaceae family.

Starmerella is a genus of fungi within the Saccharomycetales order. The relationship of this taxon to other taxa within the order is unknown, and it has not yet been placed with certainty into any family. Although, the GBIF list the family as Phaffomycetaceae. Several members of the Starmerella clade are associated with flowers and flower-visiting insects like bees and bumblebees; these yeasts cope well with high sugar niches. Many strains (species) of the Starmerella clade, including Starmerella bombicola and Candida apicola are known to produce sophorolipids which are carbohydrate-based, amphiphilic biosurfactants.

Jody Hey is an evolutionary biologist at Temple University. In the 1980s and 1990s he did research on natural selection and species divergence in fruit flies (Drosophila). More recently he has worked on the development of methods for studying evolutionary divergence, on the divergence of cichlid fishes from Lake Malawi, on chimpanzees and on human populations. His research on divergence and speciation also lead him to study the difficulties of identifying species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herman Phaff</span> Dutch-born American yeast researcher (1913–2001)


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Margaret Gale Kidwell is a British American evolutionary biologist and Regents’ Professor Emerita at the University of Arizona, Tucson. She grew up on a farm in the English Midlands during World War II. After graduating from the University of Nottingham in 1953, she worked in the British Civil Service as an Agricultural Advisory Officer from 1955-1960. She moved to the US in 1960 under the auspices of a Kellogg Foundation Fellowship to study Genetics and Statistics at Iowa State University. She married quantitative geneticist James F. Kidwell in 1961, obtained her MS degree in 1962 and moved with her husband to Brown University in 1963. She received her PhD from Brown University in 1973 under the guidance of Masatoshi Nei. From 1973 to 1984 she pursued independent research into a number of anomalous genetic phenomena in Drosophila which later lead to collaborative studies resulting in the discovery of hybrid dysgenesis and the isolation of transposable P elements. After appointment as Professor of Biology at Brown University in 1984 she moved to the University of Arizona in 1985 as Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Additional positions included Chair of the Interdisciplinary Genetics Program from 1988-1991 and Head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from 1992-1997. Research at the University of Arizona has increasingly focused on the evolutionary significance of transposable genetic elements. In 1996, she was the first woman from Arizona to be elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denise Montell</span> American biochemist and researcher

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References

  1. "William T. Starmer". College of Arts & Sciences at Syracuse University. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  2. Starmer, William Thomas (14 July 1972). Quantitative Gene Action in Cucurbita Species (Thesis). University of Arizona. OCLC   5256604 . Retrieved 18 March 2021.
  3. "SU biologist named fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science". SU News. January 10, 2012. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  4. "AAAS Members Elected as Fellows: American Association for the Advancement of Science". AAAS (Press release). 23 December 2011. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  5. Cox, Jay; Marc, David; Xu, Yuhan; Rhodes, Nancy; Yackel, Christine (1 April 2012). "Orange Matters". Syracuse University Magazine. Vol. 29, no. 1. p. 9. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  6. Burkhardt, Lotte (2022). Eine Enzyklopädie zu eponymischen Pflanzennamen [Encyclopedia of eponymic plant names](pdf) (in German). Berlin: Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum, Freie Universität Berlin. p. 1458. doi:10.3372/epolist2022. ISBN   978-3-946292-41-8. S2CID   246307410 . Retrieved January 27, 2022.
  7. "Starmera Y.Yamada, Higashi, S.Ando & Mikata". www.gbif.org. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  8. "Starmerella - Search Page". www.speciesfungorum.org. Species Fungorum. Retrieved 3 November 2022.