Exactly one month after being honored as the salutatorian of Gettysburg College’s Class of 2019, Leah Gulyas ’19 was recognized alongside Biology Prof. Jennifer Powell by scientific journal Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, which published their co-authored review article on June 19.
Entitled “Predicting the Future: Parental Progeny Investment in Response to Environmental Stress Cues,” this article emerged out of an independent study project Gulyas completed with Powell in the fall of 2018.
When animals are exposed to stressful environments, they can devote much of their energy to their own survival. At times, however, they instead choose to invest energy and resources in their offspring, making them better equipped to survive future stressful situations.
In her independent study, Gulyas performed an in-depth review of the current scientific literature on three different ways animals can execute this investment process. Although each had been studied separately, Gulyas is one of the first to make the connection among them in the context of stress-induced investment.