Awards and Recognition – Department of Biology

Aruni Kadawatha Wins Hackathon Award

October 8, 2025
Aruni Kadawatha, hackathon

PhD Candidate Aruni Kadawatha participated in the first-ever hackathon organized by the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER). Her team included six members from different countries, including the United States, Canada, Indonesia, and Singapore. Together, they developed an Integrated Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) Kit for Riparian Restoration, which combines...

Natalie Saxton Awarded Coleopterists Society Graduate Research Enhancement Award

September 23, 2025
graduate student, Natalie Saxton, student awards

PhD candidate Natalie Saxton was recently awarded a Graduate Research Enhancement award from the Coleopterists Society to support travel to the Queensland Museum, Australia to study dung beetle specimens. Saxton's proposal titled "Reevaluating generic limits in Aptenocanthon Matthews (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae)" outlines an integrative taxonomic method using genomic-scale data...

Karen Abbott Receives NSF Award for Promoting US-Japan Collaboration

September 9, 2025
faculty awards, JSPS, Karen Abbott, NSF

Dr. Karen Abbott was awarded joint NSF-JSPS funding to spend 2 months at the University of Tokyo in 2026. The award is part of a pilot program to enhance US-Japan collaborations in math and related areas of study. Congratulations Karen!

Recent Graduate Earns Prestigious NSF Award

August 13, 2025
NSF, Osmary Medina-Baez

Recent graduate student from the Abbott and Burns labs Osmary Medina-Báez has earned an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology. Osmary will be studying how changes in moisture influence thermal physiology in butterflies from tropical and temperate locations. Congratulations Osmary! You can read more HERE.

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