Southeastern biologist awarded $1,125,000 National Science Foundation Grant
Monday, March 29, 2021 
by: Tonya Lowentritt
SOUTHEASTERN BIOLOGIST RECEIVES NSF GRANT - Southeastern Louisiana University Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences April Wright has been awarded a five-year grant of $1,125,000 by the National Science Foundation to integrate information from the fossil record with data collected from living species to infer phylogenetic relationships.
HAMMOND – The National Science Foundation has awarded a biologist and specialist
in evolution, computational biology, and phylogenetics at Southeastern Louisiana University
a grant of $1,125,000. Phylogenetics is the study of evolutionary relationships among
biological entities – often species, individuals or genes.
Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences April Wright received the five-year
grant to integrate information from the fossil record with data collected from living
species to infer phylogenetic relationships.
The grant was one of only two CAREER grants awarded in the state. The National
Science Foundation CAREER awards are in support of junior faculty who exemplify the
role of teacher-scholars through research and education, and the integration of these
endeavors in the context of their organizations’ missions.
“This is a big deal. CAREER awards are the most prestigious grants awarded by
NSF, and they typically go to researchers at Research I universities, not at a regional
principally undergraduate university like Southeastern,” said College of Science and
Technology Dean Daniel McCarthy. “This is a testament not only to the world-class
level of Dr. Wright’s research, but also to the novel educational approach she is
taking with this project.”
The project will focus on the use of posterior predictive methods for assessing
which models are most appropriate for a particular dataset. The work will provide
practical guidance and research software tools for researchers to perform more complex
model assessment in systemic biology, Wright said.
“I will be working with statistical methods to integrate fossil data with extant
molecular data to estimate dated phylogenetic trees,” said Wright. “Phylogenetic trees
are one of our key ways of understanding the evolution of organisms, form, and function.
And fossils are often our only direct source of information about past organisms.
What we’ll be doing in the lab is evaluating different mathematical models for estimating
phylogenetic trees from joint fossil and molecular data.”
“This grant will allow us to grow into a nationally recognized university for
Computational Biology, which is an exciting and rapidly changing field,” McCarthy
said. “This is a tremendous opportunity for Dr. Wright, Southeastern, and especially
for our students.”
Wright said she is looking forward to the educational component of the grant.
“To do the work I do, researchers have to be competent at statistics and computation,”
she said. “We’ll be taking a look at ‘code-to-learn’ approaches where students use
code to discover insights about biology. This should help us integrate more crucial
skills development into lower-level curricula without losing biological information.”
Wright intends to formally study if teaching lower division coursework using
code-to-learn principles causes students to learn less biology. She also plans to
study if early exposure to computation in the classroom can lead to improved student
retention by helping students develop important research skills early in their careers.
“Retention of underrepresented minority students is at the heart of my educational
plan. As an assistant professor, I observe very clearly the issues with retention
of vulnerable students,” she said. “I propose to leverage existing recruitment networks
for vulnerable students to identify those who are interested in scientific computing.”
Both the research and educational missions of the project will substantially
improve their respective fields, Wright added.
“The research objectives of the project will inform researchers of how to appropriately
model complex and heterogeneous data in a hierarchical model,” she explained. “The
educational components also address key gaps in the literature on how to incorporate
computation in undergraduate biology education. In particular, code-to-learn approaches
are currently understudied in biology.
