Myers to Represent Eberly College of Science as Student Marshal at Fall Commencement

Katherine Myers of Ramsey, New Jersey, will be honored as the Eberly College of Science student marshal during fall commencement ceremonies on 22 December 2007 at the Penn State University Park campus. Myers has selected Katriona Shea, associate professor of biology at Penn State, to be her faculty escort for the commencement exercises.

Myers, who will be completing a bachelor of science degree in biology with an option, or special focus, in ecology, is enrolled in the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State, has been on the Dean's list for six semesters, and has earned a 3.98 grade-point average. Her academic achievements were recognized in 2006 with a scholarship from the Department of Biology. She also has been a member of the Golden Key International Honor Society since 2006.

Myers began work on her undergraduate thesis with David Eissenstat, professor of horticulture. She used root-growth data from Concord grape vines to create a model to predict the timing of springtime root growth. She found the best predictors of cumulative root growth to be degree days — a measure of daily deviations from a base temperature — and average daily temperatures.

In 2006, Myers enrolled in the Integrated Undergraduate-Graduate Program offered by the Schreyer Honors College, which allows undergraduate students to take on the rigors and research challenges of graduate study at Penn State and to coordinate and combine these studies with their baccalaureate studies. She has been conducting research toward her master’s thesis with Katriona Shea, focusing on factors that affect seed release in two species of invasive thistles, Carduus nutans and C. acanthoides. These factors include temperature, humidity, the consumption of flowers prior to seed-coat formation (florivory) by larvae of the biocontrol agent Rhinocyllus conicus, and changes in wind profile throughout a thistle patch and over individual seed heads. Myers plans to defend her master’s thesis in the fall of 2008.

Myers is a graduate of the Academy for the Advancement of Science and Technology, a public high school in Hackensack, New Jersey. In addition to her academic activities, she served the Penn State Salvation Army Club as secretary in 2005 and then as president in 2006. She enjoys bird-watching and recently participated in the Shaver’s Creek Birding Cup, a contest among bird-watching teams to identify the greatest number of bird species in the central Pennsylvania region within a twenty-four-hour period. Myers also enjoys American Sign Language.

After commencement, she plans to marry her high-school sweetheart, Peter Marchetto, on 5 January 2008, and to continue with her graduate studies. After completing her graduate work, she would like to pursue a teaching certificate and to teach biology at a local high school.

Says Myers of learning about her selection as student marshal, “I had to call my dad right away. He is an alumnus of Penn State, and is very Penn State proud. He was so happy to hear that I had been asked to be the student marshal that he could barely tell people at first!”

Myers will be accompanied at commencement by her father, John Myers, who received a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a bachelor’s degree in quantitative business analysis in 1976 and a master’s degree in business administration in 1980 from Penn State; her mother, Caroline Myers, who received a master’s degree in business administration in 1980 from Penn State; her fiancé, Peter Marchetto; her older brother, Matthew Myers; her grandmother, Georgietta Myers; and her aunt, Linda Bupp.