Congratulations to Dr. Juliana Rangel as she received the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Dean’s Outstanding Achievement Award for Diversity on Friday, January 10.
The award was given at a special awards breakfast before the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ session at the AgriLife Conference held at the Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center.
Rangel is an assistant professor in the Department where she conducts honey bee biology research. Since joining the department in 2013, she has mentored a total of 19 undergraduate students in which 10 are women and six are in a highly underrepresented minority group. She also has successfully recruited 3 students from the Texas A&M University’s Scholar Program and 3 from the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates program, which are very highly competitive programs.
Rangel is a very strong advocate for students in the department and is a member of the Graduate Admissions Committee and the chair of the Travel Grant Subcommittee. Rangel also served as the Faculty Advisory Committee and was Chair and Co-Chair of the Graduate Research Forum and member of the Graduate Diversity Fellowship Selection Committee.
Rangel currently coaches the Department’s undergraduate and graduate Linnaean Teams. These teams compete with other universities at both the Southwestern Branch and national Entomological Society of America meetings in a quiz bowl style competition testing entomological knowledge. Since she has been coach, the undergraduate team has won first place at the national Linnaean Games in Denver in 2017 and second place in 2018 at Vancouver.
Rangel also has been very involved in service where she has participated in numerous activities related to extending honey bee biology knowledge to the community. Some of these activities included having at the Brazos Valley Museum of Natural Science’s Boonville Days and annual “Wish on a Butterfly” butterfly release events. She also has participated in the Brazos Valley Beekeepers’ annual Bee School, and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ annual tailgate. Rangel has served internationally as the faculty advisor for Café y Miel Program for Beekeepers in Latin America.
“I am humbled and honored to be receiving this award, which I hope will help bring about an increase in diversity and inclusion in our department, our college and our institution,” she said. “As the field of entomology grows, it is becoming more diverse and inclusive. But we can all do more to break barriers and invite all members of our society to hear about our research and the importance of entomology-related fields in everyone’s daily lives. I look forward to using this award as an opportunity to start conversations that lead us to a more colorful and vibrant community!”