Loyola Biology student Shelly Wu will present a paper at the Annual Meeting of the Botanical Society of America (BSA), being held in New Orleans July 27th-31st, 2013. Shelly’s paper, entitled Assessing periphyton accumulation on hair submerged in aquatic environments to determine the postmortem submersion interval is based on her Biology Honors Thesis. The research developed new methods to assess how long human hair (and synthetic wig hair) are submerged in natural water bodies by measuring the growth of algae on the hairs. Her co-authors are Biological Sciences faculty Drs. James Wee and Craig Hood, as well as Dr. James Pinckney from the University of South Carolina. An abstract describing her results can be found here –  http://www.botanyconference.org/engine/search/index.php?func=detail&aid=940

Loyola University is one of the local host institutions to the BSA Annual Meeting being held in the Riverside Hilton Hotel – http://www.2013.botanyconference.org/