Author: Kevin Hollar     Major: Biology

My name is Kevin Hollar.  I am currently a senior who is approaching graduation this coming spring semester- quite a scary realization.  I am an honors student in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and will be graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in biology.  After I graduate this spring, I will be continuing my education at the University of Texas School of Dentistry at the Texas Medical Center of Houston.  My grant funding lasted from the spring of 2020 to the fall of 2021 and therefore this is going to be my last blog post.

I began my research at the beginning of my junior year and can say I never expected it to play out the way it has with the coronavirus.  Research has become very complicated due to the current pandemic.  I began working in the lab extracting DNA from fish species that were collected in the White River in Arkansas.  The lab work was very relaxing, and I felt like I was accomplishing quite a lot working in the lab.  While we are in unprecedented times, it is hard not to be somewhat disappointed by the fact that I left the lab only several months into my research and will most likely never return.  Nevertheless, I am very content with how my research project played out and can confidently say that I learned more than I had ever expected.

My research focuses on the fish species Rainbow Darter (Etheostoma caeruleum) in the White River in Arkansas.  For my thesis, I will be assessing the genomic population structure of Rainbow Darter.  The research draws on many different biological disciplines including ecology, genetics, and evolutionary biology.  Dr. Marlis Douglas is my research mentor who is a member of the biology department and focuses on ecology.  I first reached out to her letting her know that while my career goals are orientated towards dentistry, I am very interested in biology and specifically ecology and would love to help in her lab. I grew up in the outdoors hunting and fishing and was looking for opportunities to further explore my scientific interests.  After meeting with Dr. Douglas, she got me in contact with one of her graduate students, Zach Zbinden.  Zach has been a huge help and most of my research will end up contributing to his overall Ph.D. project.  Thanks to his instruction that I was able to learn all of the necessary procedures for my research project such as DNA extraction and sequencing.

As I approach my final semester at the University of Arkansas, I am preparing to defend my honors thesis.  Therefore, my work is not completely done yet as I am still compiling our findings and drafting my thesis paper.  It has been challenging keeping up with deadlines and staying on top of my research.  I am a very habitual person and working in the lab consistently allowed me to keep my research at the front of my mind.  However, this past two semesters I haven’t had that much to do because all of the data for my thesis has already been collected.  At this point in time, I am working on analyzing the collected data and using said data to help me support my thesis.  While I write this from my home in Austin, Texas I can’t help but look forward to next semester and hope that campus will open up more and I will be able to return to the lab!