Buoyed by the momentum built on sabbatical, Garey Chair of Biology Romi Burks continued her work on the intersection between chocolate and liberal arts education by sharing her knowledge as the featured STEM kick-off speaker at Schreiner University on September 4 with a talk titled “Chocolate Covered Science: Connect what you love to eat with what you love to study.” Following that event, Burks attended the Dallas Chocolate Festival on September 7, where she contributed to a panel discussion on the crisis in the chocolate industry, along with entrepreneur Kate Weiser of Kate Weiser Chocolates and Jimmy Steward of Guittard Chocolate. Afterwards, Burks gave a solo presentation titled “Educated by Chocolate: How to build your chocolate knowledge one bite at a time.” Burks has also been invited to give this talk again at the Northwest Chocolate Festival, along with a second presentation titled “Separating Fact from Fiction in the Science of Chocolate.” These lectures will take place the first weekend of October.

Supported by a sabbatical leave, Garey Chair of Biology Romi Burks recently published the first paper out of the lab on environmental DNA in the journal Management of Biological Invasions, in collaboration with several undergraduate researchers and colleagues. The paper, titled “Snail slime in real time: Challenges in predicting the relationship between environmental DNA and apple snail biomass,” describes how extrapolations can fail between snail abundance and the amount of genetic material produced by apple snails under cold conditions. The results have implications for estimating the size of non-native invasive populations. Student co-authors include Cassidy Reynolds ’24, Esmeralda Rosas ’24, Cynthia Bashara ’23, and Lillian Dolapchiev ’23, along with alumni collaborator Dr. Matthew Barnes ’06 from Texas Tech University and Dr. Chris Jerde from UC Santa Barbara, who provided assistance in data analysis. The open access paper can be read here, as #6 in the table of contents of the journal issue.

In 2023, Professor of Biology Romi Burks contributed to a United States Department of Agriculture - Agriculture Research Services (USDA-ARS) effort to communicate the latest science on the invasive apple snail that occurs across the southeastern region of the United States. The content of that Apple Snail Workshop, entitled “Apple Snails: Discussion of past problems and future solutions for an emerging pest in the United States agriculture/aquaculture,” now appears published in World Aquaculture, the magazine for the World Aquaculture Society. Recent Burks’ Lab researcher, now professional scientific illustrator, Lauren Muskara ’21 provided the photograph of an apple snail laying eggs on a pylon that the authors chose for the cover of the article. The full article can be read on page 46 here.

Professor of Biology Romi Burks continues “chocolating” her way through her sabbatical. On October 6th, she gave an invited talk at the Northwest Chocolate Festival in Seattle, the largest professional gathering of fine chocolate professionals. Taken place on the Fine Chocolate Industry Association’s stage, the talk “you say cacao, I say cocoa” chronicles her work on and vision for the Fine Chocolate Glossary project. Burks left for 3 weeks in London, where she will judge within the UK’s premier organization, The Academy of Chocolate. All of this travel and networking will contribute to her book project “Journey into Chocolate,” coauthored by Indi Chocolate owner and entrepreneur Erin Andrews.

Professor of Biology Romi Burks and chocolate pedagogy enthusiast gave two invited presentations this past weekend at the Dallas Chocolate Festival, which featured a theme of “The Dream of Chocolate.” On Saturday, Burks spoke about her work as the Chair of the Fine Chocolate Glossary project within the Fine Chocolate Industry Association with a title - Chocolate “Definitions” - the dream of developing a common language. On Sunday, Burks stepped 48 guests through “How to Taste Chocolate like a Competition Judge” talk where participants learned about criteria for fine chocolate. When not giving presentations, Burks staffed a booth to talk to the attendees about the Fine Chocolate Glossary. Pictures can be found on her ProfRomi Instagram and other social media platforms.