Two professors at NC State, Trudy Mackay and Coby Schal, are joint recipients of the 2015 Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence. They are recognized for their achievement and the impact of their research.
The Holladay medal is the highest award made by the university to recognize the achievement of faculty members in various aspects, including research and teaching.
Mackay, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, focuses her research on the genetic basis of variations in quantitative traits.
“These traits have multiple genes and interact together to shape genetic variation,” Mackay said.
Mackay said she works to manipulate these genes in order to understand genetic architecture. As complex as her work is, her findings impact many practical aspects of life.
“Knowledge of these complex traits are important for plant and animal breeding, climate change, evolution and overall human health,” Mackay said.
Additionally, the research that Mackay is doing will yield results that are pertinent to many species.
As a result of her extensive genetic research, genes are better understood. She said we are starting to understand interactions that occur between genes by looking at molecular pathways.
Through research, not only is Mackay paving the way for many geneticists, but she is also doing something that she loves.
“This has been an important topic to me for a long time. I have been interested in it since I was an undergraduate,” she said.
Mackay was notified she was receiving the Holladay Medal a few weeks ago, which she said was a huge honor. In addition to her research on genetics, Mackay has also partnered with Coby Schal, a Blanton J. Whitmire distinguished professor in the Department of Entomology, in researching fruit flies.
Throughout the years, Schal has researched many different insects such as bed bugs, mosquitos and ants, but his primary focus has been on cockroaches. This research started in 1976 and has spanned up until now.
Through his research, Schal said he has two main objectives.
“I have two parallel goals: to understand the insects I study and how they do things and [to]apply this knowledge to control insects,” he said.
The knowledge he is referring to spans over many areas, such as sex pheromones that cockroaches use to communicate or how cockroach females regulate egg production through hormones.
Schal said that he aims to use his knowledge of cockroaches, rather than harmful pesticides, to control them.
“My research focuses on finding ways of biology to control bugs,” he said.
In addition to the cockroach, Schal said that he started out in graduate school wanting to study all bugs, but his work with cockroaches was the result of being in the right place at the right time.
Schal said that he had a professor at the University of Kansas, where he got his Ph.D, who was interested in cockroaches and had a position available. As a result, Schal started studying tropical cockroaches in the rainforests of Costa Rica.
Schal said the impact of his research and receiving the Holladay Medal is ultimately the result of the people who helped him along the way.
“These awards are often given to an individual, but what’s often not recognized is that the body of work is not just his, but rather the work of many,” Schal said.
Coby Schal, PhD, a professor and researcher in the department of entomology, holds a hissing roach, one of his research subjects. He is a recipient of the Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence. "It's a tremendous pleasure to receive the award. This award is given to an individual but it recognizes the accomplishments of several generations of student research," he said.
