On January 21, at 3pm, Ms. Heidi “Newt” Rockney will introduce you to the world of the amphibians, highlighting the diseases plaguing them and threat-ening their survival, in particular the chytrid fungal pathogen, which she has studied in the SFSU laboratory of Dr. Vance Vredenberg.

Newt Rockney always had a dream of studying frogs in Costa Rica, but that plan was waylaid when an accident put her in a wheel chair for a time; after a few years of tough recovery, just as she was to enter her senior year at the UW, she “won” the scholarship that took her not only towards her amphibian dream in Costa Rica’s Cloud Forest, but gave her the chance to make a film of the miracles unfolding among its squirming, watery green “jungle”. Then began the evolving set of inspira-tions that told her she could communicate the wonders of nature, especially of the frog and salamander variety, to audiences, on the web via photos & films, & as a speaker.

Heidi received her BS in biology from the U. of Wash., where she was Phi Beta Kappa for 4 yrs; at present she is a graduate student at SFSU, having re-ceived a SFSU Provost Scholar Award and a National Sci. Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for 3 years. She is now a research student working in Dr. Vredenberg’s lab. (Wikipedia photo of Golden Frog , a denizen of C.A.)