Texas A&M Entomology Research Network

Awards

Students Win Top Awards at North Central – Southwestern Branch Joint Virtual Student Competition

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Group of winners from the ESA Virtual Student Competition
Top row: (from left to right): Mark Janowiecki, Erfan Vafaie, Morgan Thompson. Bottom row (from left to right): Alex Payne, Jaclyn Martin, and Cora Garcia.

Congratulations to our students that received awards during the Entomological Society of America’s 2020 North Central and Southwestern Branch Virtual Student Competition that was held in late April.

This year’s competition was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this event, students submitted a recording of their presentations and uploaded electronic versions of their posters for judging via a special website.

In the undergraduate student 10-minute paper competition, Cora Garcia received first place in the Medical, Urban and Veterinary Entomology, Plant-Insect Ecosystems and Systematics, Evolution and Biodiversity session. Her paper was titled “Honey bee (Apis mellifera) macronutrient regulation: Nurse bee nutritional preferences for proteins and lipids”.

Ph.D. candidate Mark Janowiecki placed second in Physiology, Biochemistry, and Toxicology and Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity session for his presentation titled “Surveying termite communities in primary and secondary neotropical rainforest”. Ph.D. student Morgan Thompson received second place in the Plant-Insect Ecosystems, Session I for her presentation titled “How do plant-associated microbes modify host-plant selection for insect herbivores?” while Ph.D. student Erfan Vafaie received third place for his talk “Robustness of biological control using multiple natural enemies against whitefly influx or delayed natural enemy releases”.

In the Plant-Insect Ecosystems Session II, Ph.D. student Jaclyn Martin received second place for her talk titled “Investigating the effects of Rice hoja blanca virus on the insect vector Tagosodes orizicolus”.

Jordan Gomez placed second in the undergraduate poster contest in the Medical, Urban and Veterinary Entomology and Physiology, Biochemistry, and Toxicology session for her poster titled “Determining the effects of nutrition on honey bee (Apis mellifera) pathogen defense against deformed wing virus.”

In the Ph.D. category of the Plant-Insect Ecosystems session, Ph.D candidate Alex Payne received second place “Interspecies virus transmission between ants and honey bees (Apis mellifera)”while Isaac Esquivel won third place for “Reciprocal benefits to cotton and bee pollinators in a cotton agroecosystem.”

Former Student Featured in Website Article during International Day of Women

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Shavonn Whiten portrait.
Shavonn Whiten. Submitted photo.

Dr. Shavonn Whiten, former student from the Department of Entomology, has been featured in a web article about her experiences in STEM during her college career and her job.  Dr. Whiten is a Science and Technology Policy Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), placed with the United States Agency for International Development’s Bureau of Food Security (USAID).

A native of Baton Rouge, La., Dr. Whiten came to Texas A&M University to work toward the Ph.D. degree in Dr. Zachary Adelman’s laboratory, where her research was directed toward mosquito-borne disease control using tools of molecular biology and genetic engineering.

Dr. Whiten completed her undergraduate degree in biology with a chemistry minor at Xavier University of Louisiana. After graduation at Xavier, she participated a National Institutes of Health sponsored summer program in Ghana at the University of Cape Coast. Dr. Whiten began her masters in entomology at the University of Montana while working as a biological scientist at the United States Geological Surveys.

In the web article Dr. Whiten shared why she chose the STEM field and provided advice to young women wishing to pursue opportunities in this field.  She also shared her experiences and lessons learned during her college career and in the working world.

Dr. Whiten’s work at the USAID has a global scope  in agricultural biotechnology programming to help decrease poverty and malnutrition in developing countries.

For the original article, visit https://medium.com/@FeedtheFuture/interview-with-women-in-science-meet-shavonn-whiten-5cf22bd97f2d

Undergraduate Mentorship Symposium Showcases Quality Research

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Cora Garcia, right, stands with her grad student mentor, Pierre Lau.
Cora Garcia, right, with her grad student mentor, Pierre Lau. Photo by Rob Williams

The Aggie Women in Entomology recently hosted its graduate student mentorship symposium during the 2020 Mentorship Symposium in Heep 413 on Friday, February 7.

The event featured talks by undergraduate students in entomology that were mentored by a graduate mentor. Each student was given 10 minutes to talk on their research projects. This year, four undergraduates presented research ranging from striped cucumber beetle’s preferences for host-plant olfactory cues to determining the effects of nutrition on honey bee pathogen defense against the Deformed wing virus.

Laura Marmolejo, center, with Morgan Thompson, left, and Jaclyn Martin
Laura Marmolejo, center, with Morgan Thompson, left, and Jaclyn Martin. Photo by Rob Williams.

Several awards were also given at the end of the symposium to two students to help fund travel to a national or regional professional conference of the student’s choice.

The first place award was given to Cora Garcia for her talk titled “Honey bee (Apis mellifera) macronutrient regulation: Nurse bee nutritional preferences for proteins and lipids” while second place was awarded to Laura Marmolejo for “Striped cucumber beetle (Acalymma vittatum) preferences for host-plant olfactory cues.”

The symposium’s purpose is to recognize and reward research excellence and mentorship accomplished by undergraduate students and their graduate student mentors within the Department. It also offers undergraduates a way to present their research to their peers, as well as to compete for travel awards for professional conferences.

AWE Member Alex Payne said that having a mentor helps the students in their development both professionally and academically.

“Personally speaking, I think that having a graduate student mentor was extremely beneficial to developing both my research skill set and my professional development when I was an undergraduate research assistant,” Payne said.  “This symposium allowed us to not only recognize the hard work being done by undergraduate researchers, but it also recognized the time and effort that their graduate student mentors have invested in these students and their projects.”

“The presentations during the symposium were put together very well!” AWE president Jaclyn Martin said. “All of the speakers did an amazing job. It’s really awesome to see what kind of research undergraduate students are doing in the department!” president Jaclyn Martin said.

 

Ph.D. Candidate Named Outstanding Graduate Student

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Ashley Tessnow, right, receiving her award from Professor and Interim Department Head Dr. Pete Teel. Photo by Rob Williams
Ashley Tessnow, right, receiving her award from Professor and Interim Department Head Dr. Pete Teel. Photo by Rob Williams

The Department of Entomology at Texas A&M University would like to honor Ph.D. candidate Ashley Tessnow with the 2020 Outstanding Grad Student Award in the Ph.D. category.

Tessnow was honored during the annual Graduate Student Recognition seminar during the annual Ph.D. recruitment week on January 30.

Tessnow first came to the Department as a student participating in the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience in Undergraduate program in 2013. During her time in the program, she worked in Dr. Greg Sword’s lab which resulted in her co-authoring a publication.

Two years later, Tessnow returned to A&M as a Ph.D. student working in Dr. Greg Sword’s lab. She is currently researching the applications of nutritional and molecular ecology to the integrated pest management of the fall armyworm.

Tessnow also has been very active in presenting her research having been invited to present three times at a wide range of scientific conferences. Additionally, she has given 19 oral and four poster presentations at various events. Her most recent talks include presenting her fall armyworm population genomics research at the 2019 Entomological Society meeting in St. Louis, and the 2020 Beltwide Cotton Conference in Austin, TX.

Tessnow has also mentored three different undergraduate researchers and is often sought out for help by other graduate students in the Department and across the university for bioinformatics and computational advice. She has served as a planning committee member for the Ecological Integration Symposium and helped raise more than $20,000 to support the event that had over 400 people in attendance.

Tessnow has been honored recently with the Undergraduate Student Organization’s Outstanding Teaching award and has been invited by the Assistant Department Head of the Academic Programs to serve as a Graduate Teaching Consultant to train other graduate students to become effective educators. As a Graduate Teaching Consultant, she regularly represents the department by teaching seminars across campus and working with international graduate students who hope to become teaching assistants.

“I am very honored to have received this award,” she said. “I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for this department, my advisor, and all the people who have helped me to get to this point.”

The Department also announced the winners of the annual Arthropods Image Salon. This year’s salon had a total of 35 images in four categories, with the best overall winner being awarded to Ph.D. student Mark Olson with his entry named “Sugar Dance.”

The category winners are:

All images can be viewed at https://entomology.tamu.edu/salon

Rangel Receives COALS Dean’s Outstanding Achievement Award for Diversity

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Dr. Juliana Rangel, left, with Dr. Patrick Stover, Vice Chancellor and Dean, Agriculture and Life Sciences
Dr. Juliana Rangel, left, with Dr. Patrick Stover, Vice Chancellor and Dean, Agriculture and Life Sciences. Photo by Rob Williams

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!”