HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE: ACADIA STUDENTS GETTING PUBLISHED
Sammy Stockdale (Biology, ‘25; MSc candidate) and Claire Dinn (Computer Science) never expected to be published authors before finishing their undergraddegrees. But when they enrolled in Dr. ZoëMigicovsky’s (Biology) Bioinformatics class in Winter 2025, they set off on a path towards their first publication in a scientific journal.
This winter their names appeared—along with their 14 other classmates—as authors on “Genomic structure and ex situ conservation of the North American grapevine Vitis labrusca” published in Plants, People, Planet.
The class is cross listed between Computer Science and Biology. The students worked with real, unpublished genetic data collected from both wild and conserved Vitis labruscagrapevines, a species native to North America. This wild grapevine species contains traits that are important for disease resistance and climate resilience: traits that will be crucial in breeding resilient grapes in the future of our changing world.