This year’s Doty-Losick Prize for Exceptional Service went to Research Assistant Brittany Walsh of the Bellono Lab. Named for MCB faculty Paul Doty (1920-2011) and Rich Losick, the prize celebrates MCB community members who go above and beyond to support the department’s mission and foster excellent science. MCB Chair Rachelle Gaudet presented Walsh with the prize at last Friday’s MCB Community Forum.
Walsh has been a keystone member of the Bellono Lab since 2018. In addition to caring for the diverse aquatic organisms studied by the Bellono Lab, Walsh coordinates a collaborative effort called the “supergroup” or “superlab” where the Bellono Lab holds lab meetings jointly with its neighbors—the Cavanaugh Lab, the Elya Lab, the Losick Lab, and the Nett Lab. She is also an active mentor to students who intern in the lab and helps to organize media visits and K-12 education opportunities.
“I am genuinely honored to receive this award; it is not something I expected at all,” Walsh says. “I’m just happy to play my small part in this department and hopefully help foster a thriving community of multimodal research where folks feel supported to ultimately carry out the best science they can.”
Walsh was selected based on a glowing nomination letter penned by MCB faculty Nick Bellono with input from the other four “superlab” professors.
“Not long ago, it wasn’t uncommon to go days-to-weeks without seeing people from different research groups in the historic Bio Labs building,” Bellono wrote in the nomination letter. “Brittany has helped transform the environment into a vibrant hub for curious and fun research that supports innovative scientific training, important educational activities within the undergraduate population, and enthusiastic community outreach. Brittany is an invaluable member of MCB whose service goes well beyond her job description to transform and grow our community.”
Walsh first arrived in MCB as a lab technician in the Schier Lab in 2016. Her first task upon joining the Bellono Lab in 2018 was to contribute to designs for the aquatic facility. “Brittany designed our facility and oversaw its construction in 2019 and expansion to nearly double in size in the past year,” Bellono wrote. “She now manages 1200 sq. ft. of space that has housed over 100 different marine, freshwater, and semi-aquatic species. The facility has a dedicated 2000-gallon sea water reservoir that feeds numerous independently controlled tanks of various sizes, salinities, temperatures, and bio-loads for the different species that we source, feed, and breed.”
Her duties include feeding the aquatic creatures, cleaning and repairing tanks, assisting in setting up the animals for CRISPR experiments, troubleshooting, and transporting animals to and from the lab.
Walsh also leads a coop training program that provides Bellono Lab internships to marine biology students from Northeastern University, is a point-person for the lab’s outreach projects, and often serves as an interface between the lab and media. “She has helped facilitate tours and interviews with numerous popular press articles (NYT, Wired, BBC,
Scientific American, etc.) and nature documentaries,” Bellono wrote. “For educational outreach, she has established activities that use live animals to engage students and aim to spark interest in biological science through activities which go beyond the science curricula of schools. Furthermore, through these efforts we teach PhD students and postdoctoral fellows to learn to exploit inherent public interest in their research projects to inspire and recruit young scientists from diverse backgrounds.”
Bellono concluded the letter of nomination by highlighting Walsh’s role in the supergroup.
“Together with the recruitment of the fantastic faculty members in Ryan and Carolyn, Brittany has played a major role in building an active research environment around us in MCB that supports interdisciplinary studies and outreach.,” he writes. “To achieve this goal, Brittany manages joint weekly group meetings among the Bellono, Elya, Losick,and Nett Labs in which one individual presents recent findings for detailed discussion, feedback, and suggestions. These meetings provide broad exposure to methods in biochemistry, genetics, neuroscience, and behavior….Furthermore, trainees have opportunities to learn how to respond to critiques, organize, and deliver a seminar, etc. Brittany makes this possible by using the joint meetings as a unifying event for discussion and focus on active science.”
Walsh says she’s motivated by seeing her friends and colleagues succeed. “The super-lab came about at a time when in a post-pandemic world, we were slowly getting back to a new normal, anticipating new PIs to the department, and more directly for Bellono Lab—new neighbors to our previously isolated lab,” she says. “We hoped to foster a community wherein our various lab members could discuss science across disciplines and that really started with our joint lab meeting, something I’ve happily facilitated. It’s incredibly rewarding to see it function in real time as folks present and someone asks a question about the project that perhaps they had not considered, and it spontaneously springs an exciting new direction.”
The other faculty members in the supergroup are thrilled to see Walsh receive this recognition. “In addition to her remarkable managerial skills in running the Bellono Lab, including its aquatic facilities and outreach programs, Brittany has been a magnet in drawing together multiple research teams in the south wing of the BioLabs to foster an exciting cross-disciplinary research community,” says Losick. “It is a privilege for me to be included as a member of this community, and I am grateful to Brittany for what she has accomplished.”
Carolyn Elya adds, “Brittany is an integral part of the Bellono, Nett, Cavanaugh, and Elya lab supergroup and the broader MCB community. I’m so lucky to be her neighbor in Bio Labs!”
Walsh, in turn, expressed gratitude to her colleagues and the broader MCB community. “I want to thank those who nominated me for this award; Colleen Cavanaugh, Rich Losick, Carolyn Elya, and Ryan Nett,” she says. “Supporting our ‘superlab’ is something I enjoy doing every day, even when it proves particularly challenging and without your help, guidance, and support, I wouldn’t be able to accomplish any of it. A special thanks to Nick Bellono, who as an incoming PI to this department took a chance to hire an animal technician to manage his lab and animal facility to boot. Thank you for allowing me a space to thrive and succeed in.”
Please join us in congratulating Brittany Walsh!
