This month, we are celebrating student research and success, spotlighting the work of Huck Director of Graduate Training Initiatives Donna Korzick, and announcing the appointment of David Puts as the new Huck associate director for graduate education.

Additionally, we are still taking suggestions for this news-focused monthly email blast. If you can think of something better than “Keep Up with Huck,” reply to this email with your slick new name. The winning name will make its debut in our September edition and score its author a sweet prize.

When Donna Korzick stepped into the role of director of graduate training initiatives at the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences in 2021, she brought a clear vision: support trainees, empower faculty and raise the bar for graduate education across the life sciences. Three years later, that vision is helping to reshape the graduate student training landscape at the Huck and the entire Penn State ecosystem.

Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), T32 training grants are highly competitive awards that fund programs designed to support the next generation of biomedical researchers. In her role, Korzick mentors faculty across disciplines as they build, submit and manage these programs. She also oversees broader efforts to integrate training resources and mentoring best practices across the Huck-affiliated graduate programs.

Since 2021, the Huck has seen steady growth in T32 grant activity, including successful renewals and strong scores for new submissions. Korzick’s mentorship has played a key role in that progress, including a recent T32 award to the BIOMS (Biomedical Integrated Omics and Mechanisms) program, which was made possible through the support of the Huck Institutes’ T32 training grants team.

Learn more about how Korzick is helping redefine graduate education at Penn State.

Despite having identical genetic instructions, female honey bee larvae can develop into either long-lived reproductive queens or short-lived sterile workers who help rear their sisters rather than laying their own eggs. Now, an interdisciplinary team led by researchers at Penn State has uncovered the molecular mechanisms that control how the conflict between genes inherited from the father and the mother determine the larva’s fate.

This understanding could potentially help selectively breed for honey bees with different behaviors and traits, which could help produce more productive and resilient bee colonies, according to Christina Grozinger, Publius Vergilius Maro Professor of Entomology and director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. She said her lab plans to study how intragenomic conflict influences how well a subset of honey bees—called nurse bees—rear young bees, among other traits.

They published their findings in Genome Biology.

Deepit Bhatia, graduate student in biology in the Eberly College of Science and at the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Penn State is part of a team of researchers that, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, have developed a new method to estimate and predict regional measles vaccination coverage levels even when accurate or timely survey data on vaccination is not available.

The method uses data that is routinely collected when potential measles cases present at clinics to model vaccination coverage and can be used to guide public health interventions to slow or prevent measles outbreaks.

A paper describing the research, on which Bhatia was first author, appeared recently in the journal Vaccine.

Penn State Professor of Anthropology David Puts has been named the associate director for graduate education at the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. The post was most recently held by Troy Ott, professor of reproductive physiology, who served as interim director of Huck in 2024 before becoming dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences.

A co-funded faculty member with the Social Sciences Research Institute, Puts has authored or co-authored on more than 160 scientific papers and chapters that have garnered nearly 11,000 citations and in June was elected president of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. His research focuses on understanding the endocrine and genetic mechanisms underlying the processes of sexual differentiation and the expression of sexually differentiated traits, and the reasons for the evolution of these traits.

Read more to learn about Puts’ vision for the future of graduate education.

Sophia Mucciolo, an ecology student affiliated with the Penn State Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, recently received a fellowship from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). She was one of eight students from Penn State selected for the program this year.

Mucciolo, a doctoral student in ecology, received the fellowship for her research focused on understanding survival and predation of monarch butterflies. Part of her graduate education has been supported by her participation in the NSF-funded INSECT NET program, a comprehensive curriculum that trains graduate students to develop intelligent insect monitoring systems with coursework, workshops, symposia and peer networking in entomology, computer science, machine learning, computer vision, robotics, data visualization and team science.

Junyao Yuan, a student in the Integrative and Biomedical Physiology program studying under Donna Korzick, and Avery Sicher, a recent awardee of a doctorate from the Neuroscience program working in Nikki Crowley’s lab, were awarded plaques and thanked by senior Huck leadership. The recent 2025 edition of the Life Sciences Symposium—organized annually by HGSAC—was a particularly mentioned highlight, having attracted the largest turnout in the event’s history.

Find out what Junyao had to say about her time as co-chair.

Penn State’s University Park campus recently hosted Forest Genetics 2025, the first-ever joint meeting of the Southern Forest Tree Improvement Committee (SFTIC) and the Northern and Western Forest Genetics Associations (NGFA, WFGA). The groups came together for four days from June 23 to 27 to collaborate under the theme “Harnessing Genetic Diversity for Resilient Forests.”

Three Huck students were among the honorees, with Michelle Zavala Paez (Ecology) and Diego Del Orbe Matos (Plant Biology), both members of Hamilton’s lab, winning the WFGA Critchfield award for Best Overall Oral Presentation and SFTIC Squillace Award for Best Oral Presentation, respectively. Mary McCafferty (Ecology) of Laura Leites’ lab and Avalon Miller, a Penn State Plant Pathology grad student advised by Huck faculty member Cristina Rosa, secured van Buijtenen poster awards.

The Center of Excellence in Industrial Biotechnology is hosting a workshop that will focus on and explore critical concepts in fermentation, such as aeration and agitation evaluation, scale-up strategies, and data analysis.

This is a 4-day workshop held over four Thursdays. Registration is for all four sessions.

Seminars and hands-on workshops to help identify the most suitable techniques for your research in: proteins, RNA, or other biomolecules with interest in investigating conformation, stability, binding kinetics, or mechanical properties.

For real-time event information and to submit your own, check out our Google Calendar.

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Huck research attracts media attention from around the world. Here are some highlights from the past month:

Do you have an important or impactful story to share which wasn't covered? Have something to celebrate? Let us know by emailing [email protected].