Entomology Student awarded at Honors Day Banquet

April 17, 2008

Dean Greg Weidemann presented awards recognizing accomplishments of students and faculty of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas during an Honors Day Banquet Thursday, April 17, in the Arkansas Union's Alltel Ballroom.

Congratulations to Jackie and Jon! They were both presented with awards during the Honors Day Banqet on April 17. Jon Zawislak received the Dale Bumpers Distinguished Scholar Award for a master's student. Jacquelyn Amber McKern received the Dale Bumpers Distinguished Scholar Award for a doctoral student.
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The Department of Entomology Linnaean team won the national championship in the Linnaean Games competition Dec. 11 at the Entomological Society of America meeting in San Diego. They earned a spot in the national competition by winning the Southeastern Branch championship last March.
The Linnaean Games follow a "college bowl" question and answer format. Arkansas beat Virginia Tech in the first round of the national contest, then defending champion Nebraska in the next round, New Mexico State in the semi-final, and Clemson in the championship match.

Linnaean team members are (left to right) Sandra Sleezer, Jackie McKern, Godshen Robert and Becky Trout. Not pictured are Cesar Solorzano (alternate) and coach Allen Szalanski.

Congratulations to the entire team!

On June 19, Dr. Don Steinkraus and graduate student, Jon Zawislak, spent much of the day in bee suits well above most of campus. Both were chained to a cable, outside of a window on the 5th floor of historic Old Main, where they were called by a carpenter repairing the woodwork, who had noticed bees coming and going through a crack. Once they pried open the window casing, they found a monstrous bee colony -- estimated at more than 100,000 bees -- that had been busy filling a cavity with about 6 cubic feet of honeycomb. It took about 6 hours total to remove all the comb without damaging any of the historical original woodwork. They vacuumed out the bees into a special device and installed them into a hive on the UA experimental farm. The comb they removed contained at least 100 pounds of honey.

Brandon Corbett, an undergraduate biology major who is working in Dr. Fiona Goggin's laboratory, won the student poster contest award in the M.S. student category. Especially noteworthy is that Brandon won as an undergraduate. Congratulations, Brandon!

The Linnaean Games team from Entomology won first place at the Entomological Society of America's Southeastern Branch meeting in Knoxville March 4-7.

A total of ten schools from throughout the southeast competed in a "quiz bowl" setting. Four-person teams vie to answer entomological questions concerning ecology, physiology, taxonomy, history and even insects in popular culture.

UA team members were graduate students Jackie McKern, Godshen Robert, Sandra Sleezer, Becky Trout and alternate Cesar Solorzano. The team was coached by Dr. Allen Szalanski. Both first-place Arkansas and second-place Clemson will represent the Southeastern Branch at the national Entomological Society meeting in San Diego, in December. Arkansas has won the regional championship six times, with the last title being in 2000.

Read here for a lighter version of our own "March Madness" and the Linnaean Games tournament.

Seven UA graduate students (Stephanie Hebert, Jackie McKern, John Riggins, Craig Shelton, Becky Trout, Robin Verble and Tara Wood) and Dr. Wiedenmann, plus one spouse (Matt McKern), one boyfriend (Lauren Fryxell) and one roommate (Michelle Gardner), visited the overwintering sites of monarch butterflies in the mountains of Central Mexico in early January. The UA folks were joined by students and faculty from Purdue University, the University of Kentucky, the Illinois Natural History Survey, as well as a Mexican scientist from the research agency INIFAP, accompanied by his son. Two mountain sites were visited -- Chincua and El Rosario. Untold numbers of monarchs (some estimates are > 100 million) spend the night on Oyamel Fir trees at high elevations, then move downslope as temperatures warm.

http://www.uark.edu/depts/agripub/Publications/Agnews/agnews07-3.html

James Austin (PhD 2005) was selected to receive the 2006 Snodgrass Memorial Research Award for his research conducted at the University of Arkansas. This Entomological Foundation award, named after Dr. Robert E. Snodgrass, recognizes outstanding research by graduate students who have completed investigations in selected areas of entomology. The award, to be presented at the national meeting of the Entomological Society of America in December, consists of a certificate and cash award. Congratulations, James!

Congratulations, Ricky! Click here to see other photos from his
flight.

William Cooper, 2004 M. S. graduate of the Department of Entomology, received the 2006 Conference of Southern Graduate Schools Thesis Award for his research examining pest resistance in tomatoes.
Cooper discovered some fundamental properties of inherited and acquired genes that can be applied to the area of pest management. "What he did was a critical step toward understanding the physiology of plant resistance -- how plants defend themselves," said Fiona Goggin, an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology and Cooper's research adviser.
The research was focused on two pests that damage the quantity and quality of marketable tomatoes, the root-knot nematode and the potato aphid. "The goal of the research was to look at potential reactions in forms of pest resistance in tomatoes," Cooper said.
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