Postdoc Dave Toews recently received recognition from the Cornell Office of Postdoctoral Studies. Dave received the 2018 ‘Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring’, in recognition of his work in leading the “Current Topics in Non-Model Genomics” discussion group, and his role in undergraduate education.
Congratulations to graduate student Stepfanie Aguillon for being awarded the 2018 Cornelia Ye Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. This Cornell-wide award recognizes “demonstrated excellence and dedication in instructional responsibilities to students at Cornell University, thereby enhancing undergraduate and graduate education at Cornell.” Stepfanie has been deeply engaged in teaching evolutionary biology…
Warmest of congratulations to grad student Nick Mason for ending his final AOS conference as a student on a high note by winning an AOS Council Presentation Award for his very well-received talk on “Song Evolution, Vocal Learning, and Speciation in Passerine Birds.” Way to go, Nick!
The Cornell undergraduate contingent continued a tradition of performing impressively at this year’s AOS conference. Among the highlights was the crushing victory of the 2/3 Cornell undergraduate team (plus one undergrad from that four-letter-word-staring-with-Y Ivy…guess they know a bit about birds over in New Haven) in the venerable quiz bowl…
A host of people affiliated with our group were voted in as Elected Members of the American Ornithology Society this year. Warmest of congratulations (!!!) to our current Lab of Ornithology colleagues Nick Mason, Emma Greig, Leo Campagna, and Karan Odom, and similarly to Chris Balakrishnan, Karl Berg, Sarah Kaiser,…
Irby Lovette was honored with Cornell’s Kendall S. Carpenter Memorial Advising Award during this past graduation weekend. The awards, which are given each year to four faculty from across the campus and which are Cornell’s highest recognition for advising, underscore of the importance of engagement with undergraduates and are based…
Congratulations to Nick Mason for being recognized as a recipient of the Stephen and Margaret Russell Distinguished Teaching Award from the College of Arts and Sciences. This award celebrates those “who have demonstrated their devotion to teaching, where teaching is understood to include classroom presence, preparation and administration, student counseling…
Congratulations to grad student Nick Mason for being awarded a competitive NSF postdoctoral fellowship! This award will support Nick and his research starting in January 2018 as he transitions to working at UC Berkeley with ornithologist Raurie Bowie and others. The only down-side is that we will sorely miss Nick…
We are all very excited that Shawn Billerman has just arrived back at the Lab in his new role as an NSF postdoctoral fellow! Shawn will be working on the genomics of birds that hybridize in the Great Plains region, taking advantage of the extensive collections from that region that…
Graduate student Natalie Hoffmeister is one of the leaders of a collaborative team from across Cornell that just received a substantial grant for a project entitled “Empowering Women in STEM to Lead through Inclusive Practice and Community Building.” After completing Cornell’s first Intergroup Dialogue course for graduate students, Natalie wanted…
Here’s a shot of David and Canadian Minister of Science Dr. Kirsty Duncan at a reception in Ottawa this week in honor of the current cohort of Banting Postdoctoral Scholars:
Congratulations to our Ben Van Doren for being awarded the WOS prize for best undergraduate research presentation at the North American Ornithological Conference this past week! And likewise congratulations to grad student Sahas Barve for winning one of the main grad student presentation awards, Teresa Pegan for placing highly in…
Nick Mason is everywhere at the NAOC! As in past years, it seems like PhD student Nick Mason was everywhere at the North American Ornithological Conference; in fact I’m quite sure that no other student at the 2000+ meeting had this same degree of multifaceted contribution. Nick was accordingly awarded…
Ben and Maria are Merrill Presidential Scholars: congratulations to seniors Ben Van Doren and Maria Smith for being honored today as Merrill Presidential Scholars, which means that among other leadership contributions and accomplishments they each rank academically in the top 1% of their soon-to-be graduating class. A super-neat aspect of…
Grants to Grads: congratulations to graduate student Natalie Hoffmeister for a substantial travel award from the Einaudi Center for International Studies for her forthcoming pilot study of local adaptation in Argentinian seabirds, and similar congratulations to graduate student Stepfanie Aguillon for a substantial Peacock Award from the Garden Society of…
Current postdoc David Toews just got the fantastic news that he has been awarded a two-year Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship! This very prestigious award from the Canadian government goes only to the very top Canadian scholars across all disciplines in science and medicine. We are very excited that David plans to…
Congratulations to Scott Taylor for garnering the Don Abbott Postdoctoral Research Award for an outstanding contributed presentation (talk or poster) by a current postdoc at the American Society of Naturalists meeting in mid-January. As seen in this photo, a widespread power failure required Scott to gave his talk on the…
Congratulations to grad student Natalie Hofmeister for winning the first-year award for best presentation at the 40th annual Cornell EEB research symposium. Natalie talked about her MS project on Environmental fluctuations influence the evolution of the glucocorticoid receptor in African starlings.
Ben Van Doren is a Marshall Scholar! Senior undergraduate Ben Van Doren has been selected as Cornell’s only Marshall Scholar, winning this very prestigious fellowship for post-graduate study at Oxford University where he will continue to study aspects of avian migration. Ben’s honors research in our lab includes his comparative…
Congratulations to grad student Jake Berv for being awarded a Graduate Student Research Award from the Society of Systematic Biologists in support of Jake’s studies of the phylogeographic history of various Neotropical birds.