ESC 2022 Student Travel Grant Awards

The Ecosystem Science Center is proud to announce its funding awards for Spring 2022 for a total of $12,000 to 16 students for travel to either give a talk or present a poster at a professional conference. 

ESC congratulates the following recipients:

  • Michael Arkwright, CFRES, Advisor: Tara Bal, to present “Oak Wilt Even Further North? Examining Vectors and Spread Risk across Upper Michigan and Canada” at the 2022 Society of American Foresters National Convention in Baltimore, MD.
  • Mattison Brady, CFRES,  Advisor: Tara Bal, to present “Collaborative Assessment of Sugar Maple Dieback in the Upper Great Lakes”at the 2022 Society of American Foresters National Convention in Baltimore, MD.
  • Swapan Chakrabarty, CFRES, Advisor: Carsten Küelheim, to present “Using the Eucalyptus polybractea genome improved genetic variant identification compared to using a pseudo-reference” at the Population, Evolutionary, and Quantitative Genetics Conference in  Pacific Grove, CA.
  • Chinmoyee Das, CFRES, Advisor: Xinfeng Xie, to present “Electrically Conductive Biochar filled PA 12 composites and the effect of filler morphology on composite properties” at the Forest Products Society Int’l Conf, Madison, WI.
  • Lulu Ferrer, CFRES, Advisors: Jared Wolfe and Kristin Brzeski, to present “Avian Malaria Prevalence, Diversity, and Distribution in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula” at the American Ornithological Society in San Juan, PR.
  • Michelle Kelly, BIO, Advisor Amy Marcarelli, to present “Habitat Heterogeneity Promotes Linked C and N Cycling in Streams” at the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Grand Rapids, MI.
  • Emily Lindback, CFRES, Advisor: Molly Cavaleri, to present “Northern red oak growth, phenology, and physiology across a latitudinal gradient” at the Ecological Society of America and CSEE Joint Annual Meeting in Montreal, Quebec. 
  • John C. McCall, BIO, Advisors: Gord Patterson and Kristin Breski, to present “Evaluating genotoxicity of mine tailings (“Stamp Sands”) on two game fish in a spawning reef in Lake Superior (MI)” at the Ecological Society of America and CSEE Joint Annual Meeting in Montreal, Quebec.
  • Samuel Mensah Opoku, CFRES, Advisor: Andrew Burton, to present “Estimating carbon derived from deadwood in soil pools over eight years of wood decomposition” at the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting in Montreal, Quebec.
  • Melanie Ottino, CFRES, Advisors: Kristin Brzeski and Carsten Küelheim, to present “Optimizing Fecal Metabarcoding Methodology for Diet and Population Structure Analysis of Overwintering White-Tailed Deer” at The Wildlife Society Annual Conference in Spokane WA.
  • Peng Quan, CFRES, Advisor: Xinfeng Xie, to present “Natural Wood-Based Metamaterials for Highly Efficient Microwave Absorption” at the  Forest Products Society Int’l Conference in Madison, WI.
  • Eileen Reeves, CFRES, Advisor: Andrew Burton, to present “Limited Microorganism Recovery Three Years Post-N Deposition Cessation” at the Ecological Society of America and CSEE Joint Annual Meeting in Montreal, Quebec.
  • Katherine Schneider, CFRES, Advisors: Tara Bal and Kristin Brzeski, to present “Bridging knowledge systems in insect research: Exploring human-insect relationships through Traditional Ecological Knowledge and beetle research” at the ESA/ESC/ESBC Joint Annual Meeting in Vancouver, BC.
  • Abraham Stone, BIO, Advisors: Tara Bal and Sigrid Resh, to present “Natural Solutions: Development and deployment of a local polypore as a myco-biocontrol on invasive buckthorn sprouts” at the 2022 Natural Areas Conference in Duluth, MN.
  • Madalyn Tudor-Duncan, CFRES, Advisor: Molly Cavaleri, to present “Fine root respiration of Quercus rubra across a latitudinal gradient in the Midwest” at the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting in Montreal, Quebec.
  • Rob Tunison, CFRES, Advisor: Molly Cavaleri, to present “Tropical wet-forest understory plants have limited ability to acclimate photosynthesis to higher temperatures and have lower photosynthetic capacity under experimentally warmed conditions in Luquillo, Puerto Rico” at the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting in Montreal, Quebec.