Bethania Dávila Ruiz, a NDSU doctoral student in the animal sciences department, will participate as a student in an advanced summer course from April 27 through June 8 at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Dávila Ruiz was selected from a pool of more than 50 applicants as one of 20 students to attend the course.
Dávila Ruiz also received one of two prestigious scholarships from the Society for the Study of Reproduction and the Gates Foundation. This scholarship not only will help fund her to attend the course, but also is an honor bestowed by the SSR Board of Directors to a highly ranked international SSR member who is admitted to “Frontiers in Reproduction.”
The course, “Frontiers in Reproduction” is in its 26th year and has over 500 graduates from around the world. The course runs for six weeks, 12 to 15 hours per day, six days per week.
The twenty students each year are from almost every continent and range from senior doctoral students to postdoctoral fellows to medical fellows and junior faculty.
Larry Reynolds, Dávila Ruiz’s advisor and University Distinguished Professor of Animal Sciences, served as a faculty and course consultant for 11 years and as co-director of the course for five years, during which he was responsible for organizing the last two-week section, entitled “Implantation, Development of the Reproductive Tract and Transgenesis.”
“Each of the three two-week sessions of this course brings in 15 to 20 of the world’s experts in each of the areas and sub-specialties,” Reynolds said. “Because of that, our graduates are consistently much more successful in their careers than their peers. These are top-notch students, and being in a place like the Marine Biological Laboratory allows them to learn state-of-the-art methods and concepts.”
The Marine Biological Laboratory is the premiere biological research laboratory in the world and has a strong advanced summer course program. Some of the courses have been held each year since the 1890s. In addition, more than 60 Nobel laureates, mostly in the categories of chemistry, physiology and medicine, have been affiliated with the MBL as students, faculty, staff or visiting scientists.
Several other NDSU animal sciences personnel have participated in Frontiers in Reproduction in the past. Two retired professors participated for several years as instructors. In addition, a past doctoral student was a student in the course. A current faculty member, Pawel Borowicz, director of NDSU’s Advanced Imaging and Microscopy Laboratory, is a past student who also was an instructor in the course for several years.
