Texas A&M Entomology Research Network

Grad Student News

Grad Student Wins Jeffery La Fage Award

by

Pierre Lau, right, receives the La Fage Award from Li-Byerly Hongmei. Photo by Photo by Dr. James Nieh.
Pierre Lau, right, receives the La Fage Award from Li-Byerly Hongmei. Photo by Photo by Dr. James Nieh.

Congratulations to Ph.D. candidate Pierre Lau as he received the 2019 Jeffery P. LaFage Student Award for Applied Research on Social Insects during the Entomological Society of America annual meeting in St. Louis.

Lau is completing his Ph.D. research at Texas A&M under the direction of Dr. Juliana Rangel where his doctoral work is focused on how to improve honey bee nutrition, with a focus on bees’ preferences for specific ratios of protein-to-lipid within pollen resources.

Lau’s findings so far suggest that bee pollen-to-lipid ratio preferences are substantially different from the ratios found in commercially-available pollen substitutes, which have traditionally been touted as being “high protein” to promote brood rearing.

In addition, Lau has explored variation in the types of pollen collected by bees at different places across the U.S.; characterized bee salt preferences; and developed an artificial honey bee diet that will set the stage for future tests of how bee diet nutrient content affects honey bee fitness.

Lau’s letter writers note that in addition to his critical research work focused on pollen, he is highly enthusiastic about education and outreach, helping beekeepers connect the dots between nutrition and colony health.

Lau holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Systems from the University of California, San Diego.

The Jeffery P. La Fage Student Award for Applied Research on Social Insects recognizes a graduate student for distinguished research and scholarly activity on social insects, with an emphasis on applied projects. The award consists of a plaque and an honorarium.

Grad Student Wins Graduate and Professional Student Government Fall Travel Award

by

Phillip Shults holding his certificate
Phillip Shults. Photo by Rob Williams

Congratulations to Ph.D. student Phillip Shults on receiving the Graduate and Professional Student Government’s Fall Travel Award.

The award will allow Shults to travel to Puerto Rico to attend the Society for Vector Ecology’s annual meeting. Shults will be giving a presentation titled “Taxonomic uncertainty in the C. variipennis complex part II: population genomic structure of C. sonorensis throughout North America” during the meeting.

Shults will also be coordinating a symposium titled Unveiling the Ecology of North American Culicoides Vectors where he will have experts speaking on different members of the genus Culicoides, which are commonly known as biting midges. The topics range from pathogen transmission to molecular ecology to novel vector control strategies.

“I’m thrilled to have received this award,” he said. “I’ve been a part of multiple awards committees and that experience was incredibly helpful when filling out the travel award application.”

Texas A&M entomology student chosen as fellow for National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility Scientist Training Program

by

Pohlenz cultures cells in the lab for titering virus. (Photo by graduate student Sarah O’Leary.)
Tyler Pohlenz cultures cells in the lab for titering virus. (Photo by graduate student Sarah O’Leary.)

COLLEGE STATION — Tyler Pohlenz, a Texas A&M University doctoral student, has been selected as a fellow for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility Scientist Training Program, or APHIS-NSTP, starting the 2019 fall semester.

Pohlenz’s doctorate concentrates on arboviruses, such as Zika, and other important pathogens.

“With the move of the USDA’s Animal Disease Center from Plum Island, New York, to Kansas, USDA needs to staff the new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, NBAF,” said Kevin Myles, Ph.D., professor of entomology and Pohlenz’s major advisor. “The fellowship looks for young people who are studying for their master’s or doctorate in the areas of interest to the type of work that will be going on in the facility.”

The APHIS-NBAF Scientist Training Program was created to identify highly qualified candidates to fill key roles in the new facility.

“One major aspect of this is that USDA will connect me with someone who is currently working at the facility, and they will act as a mentor,” Pohlenz said. “We will have biannual meetings where they will connect me with other scientists in the field and high containment laboratories. So it will give me a chance to network with people in the field as well as research funds to help me continue my Ph.D. research.”

According to APHIS and the fellowship parameters, fellows will receive full tuition and supplementary support to complete their degree program in target laboratory-based fields of study including microbiology, virology, molecular biology, diagnostics, bioinformatics, etc. Fellows are also required to maintain a 3.25 GPA.

Myles said Pohlenz’s research is focused on arboviruses, such as Zika and other important pathogens, and how they are transmitted by mosquitoes. His research is focused on those viruses and how they are transmitted and spread during periods of epidemic activity.

“There are some pathogens that are very important as far as the livestock industry, and these pathogens can be very devastating to livestock if you have an epidemic,” Myles said. “But because of that, it is important that we study these types of pathogens in order to come up with therapeutic treatments, etc. to help protect our livestock industry.”

Fellows will be required to fulfill a tiered service commitment following completion of the program, based on the number of years of funding received.

“I will be spending at least five years in the foreign animal disease diagnostic lab, but after that, I plan to stick around the government sector,” Pohlenz said.

“He has proven to be one of the top graduate students that I have had during my 13 years of running the laboratory,” Myles said. “He is just very passionate about the questions he’s investigating. He has good hands and is very skilled in the laboratory and is very intelligent. He has been an excellent graduate student.”

Grad Student Receives MUVE Travel Award

by

Caixing Xiong. Photo by Rob Williams.
Caixing Xiong. Photo by Rob Williams.

Congratulations to Ph.D. candidate Caixing Xiong as she was named the newest recipient of the Entomological Society of America’s MUVE (Medical, Urban, Veterinary Entomology) Travel Award.

The award allows Xiong to attend the ESA Annual Meeting that will be held in St. Louis, Mo. from November 17-20.

Xiong is mentored by Dr. Patricia Pietrantonio and will be presenting in the President’s Prize graduate student 10-minute paper competition in the MUVE category.

Xiong’s research interests include validating arthropod-specific G protein coupled receptors, or GPCRs, as targets, and discovering of their novel functional roles   by performing both in vitro and in vivo experiments.

“I felt very honored to receive the MUVE travel award. I am grateful for all the support and guidance my supervisor, Dr. Patricia Pietrantonio, has provided me with my research and professional development, and many great opportunities the department has offered to help me develop a strong application package,” she said. “This award will support my travel to ESA and broaden my network. Importantly, it will also help advocate Texas A&M AgriLife brand as well as our department at the awards ceremony.”

Pietrantonio was very proud of Xiong for her hard work and dedication and said that the award will help Caixing to present her research to a broad audience.

“The ESA Travel award from the section Medical, Urban and Veterinary Entomology is the result of Caixing’s dedication to her research and her timely production of results that we published in prestigious peer-reviewed journals,” Pietrantonio said. “Our colleagues at ESA recognized high quality, innovative research in vector biology, specifically in endocrinology of the cattle fever tick and the yellow fever mosquito, both a threat in Texas. I am very proud of this recognition that highlights our departmental achievement in graduate student education and training.”

Grad Students Receive Top Awards at Graduate Student Forum

by

Winners of the Graduate Student Forum for 2019
The winners for the 22nd annual Graduate Student Forum. From left to right are: Zanthé Kotzé,-First Place, Pierre Lau – Second Place, and Xiaotian Tang – Third Place. Photo by Rob Williams.

Congratulations to three of our graduate students as they received awards during the 22nd annual Graduate Student Forum that was held on August 22 in Room 103.

Ph.D. candidate Zanthé Kotzé received first place for her presentation titled “Mechanisms regulating behavior of arthropods that consume vertebrate carrion: Deciphering succession as related to forensic entomology.”

Ph.D. student Pierre Lau received second place for his talk “Understanding honey bee foraging preferences and nutrient regulation to improve beekeeping pollen substitutes” while Ph.D. student Xiaotian Tang received third place for his presentation titled “Let’s talk about eating, by the way, it’s self-eating.”

The winners were three out of a total of 18 grad student that participated in this year’s forum. The event allows the Department’s graduate students to present their latest research and gives them an opportunity to practice for the upcoming competitions at the Entomological Society of America’s annual meeting that will be held in St. Louis, Mo., on November 17-20.