A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff
Professor and Chair of Biological Sciences Lynn Lewis
Professor and Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences Lynn Lewis weighed in on an editorial in The Free Lance-Star entitled “Science, personal choice must work together.”
Lynn Lewis, Ph.D., has a better feel than most for using science in making policy. She’s professor and chair of biological sciences at the University of Mary Washington, and she’s involved with advising school leaders on the policies UMW should follow on the pandemic.
“Science is not static,” she says. “There are always questions, and things are never known beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
So when guidelines switch from vaccinated people don’t need a mask to you must mask regardless of vaccination status, it’s because the information we have has shifted. “It’s not that you’re getting conflicting information,” she says, “it’s that things on the ground have changed.” Read more.
Assistant Professor of Biological Science Josephine Antwi
Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Josephine Antwi was interviewed on NorthJersey.com/The Record about the invasive spotted lanternfly.
“The key right now, is to keep them from spreading and to keep their numbers down in areas where they currently occur,” said Josephine Antwi, an entomologist at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. “By destroying egg masses in the winter, we keep the number of the following generation down.” Read more.
Assistant Professor of Biological Science Josephine Antwi
Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Josephine Antwi was interviewed by The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang about the invasive Spotted Lanternfly, which has been spotted across the East Coast and has the potential to wreak havoc upon trees, plants and agricultural crops like apples, grapes, stone fruits and hop plants.
Despite having wings, the adults don’t fly far. The bugs are often spread by vehicles. Residents in quarantined counties are urged to inspect vehicles and goods for transport to ensure that the insects and their egg masses are not hitching a ride.
“If females lay eggs on a substrate that eventually moves (e.g., automobiles or goods), then they quickly spread that way,” Josephine Antwi, a professor of biology at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, wrote in an email. Read more.
Sophomore Liliana Ramirez (pictured here) and junior Maddie Lichter are the first two students to participate in a partnership between UMW and the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation.
Liliana Ramirez and Madelyn “Maddie” Lichter know that residence hall life can be a bit like living in a zoo. So these University of Mary Washington students felt prepared for all the wildlife sounds and smells they’ve experienced over the last several months.
Both pursuing UMW’s new conservation biology major, Ramirez and Lichter are pioneer participants in a new partnership between Mary Washington and the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation. The pair has spent the last semester engaged in a new kind of “domestic study abroad experience,” conducting hands-on research on endangered animal and plant species at Front Royal’s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, nestled at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains on 3,200 acres of forest, grasslands and pasture along the Shenandoah River.
“We hear wolves howling, and whooping cranes going at it. Last night, I heard something that sounded very zebra-like,” said Ramirez, mimicking the noise she heard while falling asleep in the residence hall. The building is one of three on campus, which also includes a dining common area and an academic center with state-of-the-art classrooms and research labs. Read more.