June 21, 2018
TORONTO — The International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR) recognized top student scientists for their contributions to IAGLR and Great Lakes science. The following awards were presented Thursday at the association’s 61st Annual Conference on Great Lakes Research, in Toronto, Ontario.
IAGLR Scholarships
The 2018 winners are Sarah Larocque (University of Windsor) for research on "Spatial and trophic niches through ontogeny and the influence on restoration of a native species in Lake Ontario" and Nathaniel Marshal (University of Toledo) for research on "Environmental DNA High-Throughput Assays for Invasive Invertebrate Species Detection and Habitat Quality Assessment in the Great Lakes." The IAGLR Scholarship is awarded annually to promising Ph.D. students whose dissertation research is likely to make a significant contribution to the understanding of large lakes.
David M. Dolan Scholarship
The recipient of this year’s award is Kaitlin Reinl (University of Minnesota) for research on "Assessing future risk of cyanobacteria blooms in western Lake Superior: a modeling approach." The scholarship is awarded for the pursuit of graduate research in applied mathematics for the advancement of a quantitative understanding and management of the Great Lakes ecosystem. The scholarship honors the memory of David M. Dolan, whose work in applied mathematics, statistics and computer modeling served to provide a quantitative basis for phosphorus management on the Great Lakes.
Norman S. Baldwin Scholarship
The 2018 winners are Corey Krabbenhoft (Wayne State University) for research on "Round Goby Invasion and the Impact on Native Michigan Fishes" and Hannah Lachance (University of Vermont) for research on "Climate Change, Cisco (Coregonus artedi) & Gene Expression." The Norman S. Baldwin Fishery Science Scholarship is awarded annually to a deserving graduate student conducting research pertaining to Great Lakes fisheries. The scholarship is sponsored by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, IAGLR's oldest sustaining member, and honors the first executive secretary of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
International Travel Award
The 2018 winner is Kevin Obiero (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria; Centre Director, Kenya Marine Fisheries Research Institute) for research on “Aquaculture, innovation and rural development: examining the role of extension systems in facilitating technology adoption for improved livelihoods in Kenya, Eastern Africa.” This award provides travel support for a master's, Ph.D. student, or a post-doctoral fellow from countries outside of the United States or Canada to attend IAGLR's annual Conference on Great Lakes Research.
JGLR/Elsevier Student Author Award
This year’s recipient is Larry Bowman Jr. (East Tennessee State University) for the article “A capital breeder in a heterogeneous environment: Lipid reserves and RNA:DNA ratio in Lake Baikal’s endemic Epischura,” Journal of Great Lakes Research 43, 280-288. This award recognizes a student scientist who is first author on a top-ranked article in the journal. Co-authors include Elizaveta Kondrateva, Eugene Silow, Paul Wilburn, and Lev Yampolsky.
IAGLR Awards
These awards recognize the best student papers and posters presented at the previous year’s conference. The following winners presented at IAGLR’s 2017 conference in Detroit, Michigan.
The winners of the 2017 IAGLR Best Student Paper Award are Timothy Malinich (Purdue University) for the presentation “Factors Leading to Plastic Expression of Morphological variation of Perca flavescens,” and Joshua Stough (University of Tennessee) for the presentation “Discrimination of temperate vs lytic phage activity in Microcystis blooms using systems biology.”
Winners of the 2017 IAGLR Best Student Poster Award are Eva Kramer (University of Toledo) for the poster “Avoiding HABs at Toledo’s Drinking Water Intake by Observing Vertical Distribution and Migration” and Xuewen Jiang (Ohio State University) for the poster “Characterization of cyanophages from Lake Erie that suppress Microcystis growth.”
