Williams Professor Wins Grants to Study Evolutionary Genetics

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Two grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will support ongoing research by Luana Maroja, associate professor of biology at Williams College, into evolutionary genetics. The grants, totaling $137,315, were recently approved by the NSF.

The grants will support two projects Maroja is working on related to speciation and genetics. The first grant, for $91,173, will support collaborative research Maroja and her students are undertaking with Cornell University on the importance of sex chromosomes in speciation, specifically looking at whether genes that do not transfer genetic information from one species to another during hybridization are concentrated on the X chromosome. The project will provide important insights into the genomic architecture of speciation, the role of the X chromosome in reproductive isolation and divergent adaptation, and will contribute to ongoing debates about how differentiation accumulates in genomes over time.  

As part of the project, Maroja and her students will develop evolution workshops aimed to help educate middle and high school students.

Williams College Plans Temporary Parking Lot at Former Field House Site

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
01:37PM / Sunday, March 09, 2025

The foundation of the demolished Towne Field House is still visible on the Williams campus.

 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College last month secured the town's permission to convert the former site of Towne Field House to a temporary parking lot.

 

In a series of meetings hearings before the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Conservation Commission, the college received a special permit and a negative determination of applicability of the Rivers Protection Act to enable to new use for the lot on Latham Street.

 

Engineer Charlie LaBatt of Guntlow and Associates represented the college before both town panels, stressing each time the temporary nature of the plan.

 

"Five to eight years is what's anticipated, as the college works to solve what's next for that area of campus." Guntlow told the ZBA. "It will help alleviate parking concerns they have while other projects go on around campus that may displace workers and tenants.

 

"This use of this area, which has been dormant for about two years, it was felt was a fairly easy, low-impact and yet beneficial use for the community — five to eight years in the while everyone could benefit from it."

 

LaBatt and college officials who attended the ZBA meeting said that while the planned 66-space lot is intended for college use, it could be available to the public in the evening, on weekend or during college breaks, just like the adjacent existing lot associated with the college's facilities building.

 

The school needed a special permit from the ZBA, in part, because of the temporary lot is an expansion of and will be connected to the existing parking lot, which itself does conform to the bylaw. The lot across from the Weston Field athletic complex extends beyond the front edifice of the facilities building it serves; the bylaw requires parking areas in that district to be set back from the road at least to the profile of the building.