The Southwestern Association of Parasitologists was recently held on Lake Texoma in Oklahoma. Fourty-four parasitologists attended (from Nebraska to New Mexico); 18 students talks were presented (10 by graduate, 8 by undergraduate students), including talks by Joanna Cielocha (PhD student), and undergraduate students Shelbi Russell and Lauren Hansen.
Of 4 awards given to students at this meeting, 3 went to KU: Shelbi Russell received the Mark Dresden Award for best undergraduate student presentation, and Joanna Cielocha and Lauren Hansen received Honorable Mention for their representations.
Charles Linkem, Ph.D. student with Rafe Brown, was recommended for funding for his NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant.
Charles' proposal is titled “Integrative Morphological Evolution in Philippine Forest Lizards of the Genus Sphenomorphus” and the amount awarded is $14,800.
You can read about Charles' work here:
http://people.ku.edu/~cwlinkem/Research.html
Some links to various images of some of the species involved:
http://www.herpwatch.org/species_images.shtml?image_id=316
http://www.herpwatch.org/species_images.shtml?image_id=290
http://www.herpwatch.org/species_images.shtml?image_id=315
Bastian Bentlage and Annalise Nawrocki, PhD students with Paulyn Cartwright, were both recommended for funding for their NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grants.
Annalise's proposal is titled “Aplanulata (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa): A Model Clade for Investigating the Evolutionary and Developmental Basis of Hydrozoan Body Plan Diversity” and the amount awarded is $14,991. She is investigating developing gene expression in a phylogenetic context to better understand character evolution in hydrozoans.
Basti's proposal is titled “Biogeography of Open Ocean Hydrozoans (Cnidaria: Medusozoa)” and the amount awarded is $14,990. Basti is investigation phylogeography in conjunction with ecological niche modeling to better understand the process of speciation in open ocean, holopelagic jellyfish.
Congratulations to Andrew Schwendemann, PhD student with Tom Taylor recently was awarded a 2009 Summer Research Fellowship through the Office of Research and Graduate Studies. The award is a $5000 stipend and is awarded to a small and select group of graduate students, all of whom have excellent academic records and strong endorsements from their departments.
Lisa Tiemann, Ph.D. student with Sharon Billings was recommended for funding for her NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant. The title of Lisa's dissertation is: “Beyond the black box: understanding the relationship between microbial structure and function under environmental stress and disturbance.”
Paulyn Cartwright has been chosen to receive the Byrd Graduate Educator Award, which was established in 1984 in memory of Louise E. Byrd, who served for many years as secretary of the KU Graduate School. The award honors faculty members who have demonstrated extraordinary devotion to graduate students and graduate education and who have distinguished themselves as scholars. Congratulations Paulyn!
Cathy Collins has been awarded the 2009 Argersinger Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation. Cathy will receive her award at the Doctoral Hooding Ceremony and will be seated on stage with the stage party. Her name will be affixed to a plaque located at the memorial Union. Congratulations to Cathy!
Congratulations to all of our remarkable graduate students!
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