Meghan Duffy

Meghan Anne Duffy is an American biologist and associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan. She focuses on the causes and consequences of parasitism in natural populations of lake populations. In 2019, she created a task force to examine factors that influence the mental health and well-being of graduate students at the University of Michigan.[2][3][1][4]

For those of a similar name, see Megan Duffy (disambiguation).
Meghan Duffy
Born
Meghan Anne Duffy
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater
AwardsPresidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2012)
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
ThesisEvolutionary and community ecology of parasitism in Daphnia (2006)
Doctoral advisor
  • Alan Tessier
  • Jeff Conner
Websiteduffylab.wordpress.com

Education

Duffy earned a Bachelors Biological Sciences from Cornell University in 2000.[5] She completed her graduate studies at Kellogg Biological Station and Michigan State University. She was awarded a PhD in Zoology and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior in 2006.[6]

Career and research
Duffy speaking at the 2017 March for Science event in Washington, DC

In 2006, she was appointed an National Science Foundation (NSF) postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Wisconsin. In 2008 she joined Georgia Tech as an assistant professor.[7] She worked on the parasites that feed on small freshwater crustaceans (Daphnia), using them as a "model system for understanding host-parasite interactions in general".[8] She found that ecological context was important when gauging epidemic size, and that when some parasites are "battling an epidemic of a deadly parasite, less resistance can sometimes be better than more".[9][10] In 2012 she won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, which was presented to her by Barack Obama.[11][12]

Duffy joined University of Michigan in 2012.[13] Her research concentrates on rapid evolutionary responses in novel host-parasite associations. She is currently researching the influences of food webs and eco-evolutionary dynamics on host-parasite interactions and multi-host, multi-parasite interactions.[5] Duffy is concerned about cuts to basic research funding.[14]

Public engagement

Duffy established the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) Mentor Match, which pairs undergraduate students from minority-serving institutions with mentors to help with graduate school and fellowship applications.[15] Duffy created Diversity EEB, a list of ecologists / evolutionary biologists who are women or from a group traditionally underrepresented in the sciences to help people identify scientists who might diversify seminar series or for award nominations.[16] Duffy is one of the 2017/2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellows.[17] She is interested in how scientists can engage with policy makers.[18][19] She delivered the opening address at the 2017 March for Science.[20] In 2017, Duffy ran a workshop for high school students on the University of Michigan Wolverine Pathways program, teaching students how to find and use open data to answer questions that they are interested in.[21] She is one of three contributors to the science blog Dynamic Ecology.[22]

In October 2017, Duffy won the University of Michigan President’s Award for Public Impact, for being "a leading national voice in promoting the crucial importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in the STEM disciplines".[13][23] She won the 2010 George Mercer Award from the Ecological Society of America, and the 2017 Yentsch-Schindler Early Career Award from the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.[24]

References
  1. Meghan Duffy publications indexed by Google Scholar
  2. Adkins, Lenore T. "Ecologist Meghan Duffy Prioritizes Graduate Student Mental Health". AAAS. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  3. duffylab.wordpress.com
  4. Meghan Duffy publications from Europe PubMed Central
  5. "Meghan Duffy | U-M LSA Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB)". lsa.umich.edu. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  6. "Conner Lab - People". msu.edu. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  7. "School of Biological Sciences | Georgia Institute of Technology | Atlanta, GA | Georgia Institute of Technology | Atlanta, GA". biosci.gatech.edu. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  8. "NSF Current August" (PDF). NSF. 2012-08-01. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  9. "In parasite battles, weakness is a boost". Futurity. 2012-04-05. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  10. Duffy, Meghan A.; Ochs, Jessica Housley; Penczykowski, Rachel M.; Civitello, David J.; Klausmeier, Christopher A.; Hall, Spencer R. (2012). "Ecological Context Influences Epidemic Size and Parasite-Driven Evolution". Science. 335 (6076): 1636–1638. Bibcode:2012Sci...335.1636D. doi:10.1126/science.1215429. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 22461614.
  11. "President Obama Honors Outstanding Early-Career Scientists". whitehouse.gov. 2012-07-23. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  12. "President Obama Honors Early Career Scientists and Engineers". www.nsf.gov. National Science Foundation. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  13. "Meghan Duffy | Public Engagement". publicengagement.umich.edu. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  14. "Scientist warns Trump budget cuts to basic research could "devastate American innovation"". Stateside. Michigan Radio. June 21, 2017. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  15. Duffy, Meghan (2017-08-23). "Introducing #EEBMentorMatch: linking students from minority serving institutions with application mentors". Dynamic Ecology. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  16. "About". Diversify EEB. 2016-02-23. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  17. "2017-2018 Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellows: Infectious Disease". AAAS - The World's Largest General Scientific Society. 2017-02-09. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  18. Duffy, Meghan (2017-06-27). "What I learned from my visit to Capitol Hill about engaging with policy makers and mentoring students". Dynamic Ecology. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  19. Duffy, Meghan (2017-06-22). "How can scientists engage with policy makers? (Updated!)". Dynamic Ecology. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  20. Kimbrell, Elana (2017-05-11). "Incoming Leshner Leadership Fellow Gives Two-Minute Talk to 40,000 People". AAAS. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  21. "Home – University of Michigan Wolverine Pathways". University of Michigan Wolverine Pathways. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  22. Fox, Jeremy (18 June 2012). "About". Dynamic Ecology. Retrieved 13 May 2018.
  23. "On U-M Gateway: Duffy selected for inaugural President's Award for Public Impact | U-M LSA Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB)". lsa.umich.edu. Retrieved 2018-02-21.
  24. "ASLO : Yentsch-Schindler Early Career Award". aslo.org. Retrieved 2018-02-21.


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