Student freshwater scientists honored at research conference

For IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 19, 2021

Contacts: Awards Committee Co-chairs Sarah Larocque and Francine McCarthy, [email protected]

ANN ARBOR, MI — 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 announced today at the association’s 64th annual Conference on Great Lakes Research, held online.

IAGLR Scholarship
The 2021 winner is Matthew Thorstensen (University of Manitoba) for research on “Genomics, movement, and ecology of the Lake Winnipeg walleye.” 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 Stephanie Figary (Cornell University) for research on “Zooplankton as indicators: Understanding the Great Lakes through decades of zooplankton monitoring.” 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 2021 winners are Zoe Almeida (Ohio State University) for research on “Do early-life conditions set lifetime trajectories in fish? Evaluating how experiential legacies influence individual and population responses to changing environments” and Graceanne Tarsa (University of Wisconsin) for research on “Round goby, Neogobius melanostomus, abundance and productivity in the rocky nearshore zone of Lake Michigan.” 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.

JGLR/Elsevier Student Author Award
This year’s recipient is Ryan Grow (University of Minnesota, Duluth) for the article “Spatial and vertical bias in down-looking ship-based acoustic estimates of fish density in Lake Superior: Lessons learned from multi-directional acoustics,” Journal of Great Lakes Research 46(6), 1639-1649. This award recognizes a student scientist who is first author on a top-ranked article in the journal. Co-authored with Thomas R. Hrabik, Daniel L. Yule, Bryan G. Matthias, Jared T. Myers, and Chad Abel.