2023-24 Biology News Stories

Each summer William & Mary students from different backgrounds with diverse academic interests come together in a vibrant community centered on a shared passion for research.

Madeleine Harris, a senior at William & Mary, wrote this piece as part of the NASW Perlman Virtual Mentoring Program with help from Eli Kintisch, a contributor to Science magazine. She is a Neuroscience major with a minor in Biochemistry, and a member of the Flat Hat.

Students in introductory biology (BIOL 203), along with Biology faculty, staff, and graduate and undergraduate student teaching assistants, enjoyed frozen treats on September 14, 2023, while getting to know each other.

The large hawks have become a familiar sight to waterfront homeowners who like to keep track of nests near their property, said Bryan Watts, director of William & Mary’s Center for Conservation Biology. But Watts and his colleagues have increasingly heard from residents worried about the birds’ fate after seeing fewer of them. The biology center’s new research confirms those concerns. They found that osprey in the lower Chesapeake Bay are failing to successfully reproduce. It’s the lowest number of osprey chicks that officials have seen since the information started being recorded in the 1970s.