As part of the lab double-PhD month of April, Emily Moriarty Lemmon defended her dissertation successfully on Friday, April 27.

Despite the early morning time (9am), the crowd of onlookers was alert and well behaved. Emily's parents, as well as academic godfather Joseph Collins, were also in attendance. There it was revealed that Emily had longed to work on Pseudacris from the age of 14. Whereas other teenage girls sat in rapt attention to the music of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, Emily preferred to be standing in a cold pond in Kansas, following the pulse of a different song.

Following a lengthy interrogation by her committee, Emily passed, and enhanced orange juice was shared by all. Emily will file her dissertation by the end of the summer, and she and Alan will move to UC Davis to begin postdoctoral work.