Dr. Melissa Coleman graduated in biology from Samford in 1989, moving on to a fulfilling career in teaching and research.  Dr. Larry Davenport, Professor of Biological and Environmental Sciences at Samford and one of Dr. Coleman's mentors during her years here, wrote to me last week (with considerable pride) to say that a paper she co-authored has just been published in Science.  The title of the paper is "Neural Mechanisms for the Coordination of Duet Singing in Wrens."  From the opening paragraph:  "Previous findings in nonduetting songbird species suggest that premotor circuits should encode each bird's own contribution to the duet.  In contrast, we find that both male and female wrens encode the combined cooperative output of the pair of birds.  Further, behavior and neurophysiology show that both sexes coordinate the timing of their singing based on feedback from the partner and suggest that females may lead the duet." 

  

The world is better because of the curiosity of Samford graduates.