Each year, the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology hosts an event to celebrate the academic achievements of our undergraduate students. This year’s event was held on May 2, 2025, in the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Building. The program included a poster session, an awards ceremony, and a talk by Professor Holly Moeller from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Professor Holly Moeller is a theoretical ecologist who uses mathematical and empirical approaches to understand acquired metabolism. Holly began her research career as an undergraduate at Rutgers, where she majored in Chemistry and Biology and studied the photophysiology of phytoplankton. She built her mathematical toolkit as a master’s student working on marine reserve bioeconomics. As a PhD student, she studied the ancient and diverse metabolic mutualism between trees and ectomycorrhizal fungi.
Holly spent most of her postdoctoral tenure as an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, studying acquired metabolism in plankton with Drs. Michael Neubert and Matthew Johnson. She was also briefly a Biodiversity Research Centre Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia, before moving to UCSB where she is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology. In addition to her scientific work, Holly is a bit of a ‘math evangelist,’ who tells everyone that she meets about the vital role of mathematics in biology.
Title: "Trade, Borrow, or Steal: Understanding the Acquisition of Metabolism with the Tools of Ecology, Mathematics, and Chemistry"
Abstract: Although biologists often think of organismal metabolism as pre-determined by a species' DNA, in reality many organisms extend their metabolic capabilities through associations with other species. For example, we humans rely on our gut microbiota to make the most out of the food that we eat, and corals rely on symbiotic algae to form the foundation of some of Earth's most biodiverse ecosystems. In this talk, we'll dive into two of the model systems our research group uses to explore this acquired metabolism: (1) the metabolic mutualisms between trees and fungi that support Earth's forested ecosystems, and (2) chloroplast-stealing ciliates that give us insights into how eukaryotes evolved the capacity for photosynthesis. Anchoring our understanding in the (bio)chemistry that underpins these exchanges, we'll use a combination of mathematical, observational, and experimental tools to understand their ecological and evolutionary consequences.
This event is in loving memory of Jean Wilson Day, who received her Ph.D. from Rutgers in 1965, having done research on polyphosphates under supervision of Professor Ulrich Strauss. That same year she joined the staff of the school of Chemistry as instructor of general chemistry and was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1968. She was an extremely enthusiastic teacher, and cared deeply about her students. She taught with great enthusiasm and organized special classes for the slow learners. Jean was also profoundly concerned about environmental pollution and sparked an interest among her colleagues and students seeking remedies.
After her untimely death in 1971, the Department chose to honor Jean’s memory by establishing a lectureship designed to attract undergraduates. As an enduring tribute to her generous spirit, Dr. Jim Savage, along with fellow classmates from Rutgers Class of 1971, formally announced the establishment of the Dr. Jean Wilson Day Memorial Scholarship on May 14, 2011.
Click here to see award recipients!