Student mentoring and support 2022

As scientists, we conduct daily research activity in both the lab and the field, and students are involved in virtually every grant funded. We engage students through:

• classes taught on campus by our scientists holding faculty positions;
• field courses and field work led by scientists or graduate students at the Field Station or other sites;
• opportunities to assist with faculty research in Survey labs or at the KU Field Station through fellowships or grant funding;
• mentorship of students doing their own research;
• assistance to students in obtaining grants for research;
• assistance to students in developing posters and presentations for conferences;
• paid employment in Survey offices and at the KU Field Station.

In 2022, our researchers chaired 33 master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation committees and served as committee members for other students. In addition, they mentored 48 undergraduate or postbaccalaureate students, most working in our labs.

Our research center also provides a group of annual awards each spring for student research. In 2022, we provided a record amount of assistance and awards for more students, 13, than in any previous year. Recipients include both graduate and undergraduate students, and all awardees present their work at one of our Friday Ecology Seminars, which are held during the spring and fall semesters. The awards are funded through KU Endowment.

Recipients of named awards and their project titles were:

• Director’s Award: Kayla Clouse, doctoral student, “Experimental evolution of Azospirillum brasilense to maize under two fertilization regimes” (advisor Maggie Wagner).
• Nancy Hale-Martinko Memorial Award: Adeline Kelly, junior, “The effects of fire on lake phytoplankton community composition in grassland ecosystems”; (advisors Ted Harris and Ben Sikes).
• Kenneth B. Armitage Award: Audrey Nelson, junior, “Confirming that differences in disease incidence in response to manipulations of plant species richness, phylogenetic relatedness, and precipitation are driven by host-specific pathogens” (advisor Jim Bever).
• Baldwin Woods Award, Alexander Andresen, junior, “Macro shifts in fungal diversity between Baldwin and Rice regions” (advisor Ben Sikes).
• W. Dean Kettle Conservation Award: Reb Bryant, graduate student, “The impact of prairie monolith transplants on successional recovery in different post-agricultural land uses” (advisor Jim Bever).
• Mari F. Pesek Award: Chen Liang, doctoral student, “Detecting Eastern Redcedar encroachment from 2017 to 2021 using satellite images” (advisors Xingong Li, professor of geography & atmospheric science, and Jude Kastens).

Other award recipients were:

• Adeola Adeboje, doctoral student, “Cross-variable synchrony and climatic change” (advisor Dan Reuman).
• Nat Coombs, doctoral student, “Synchrony of movement of anadromous fish along a network of imperfect detectors” (advisor Dan Reuman).
• Micah Unruh, doctoral student, “Mutually transformative interactions between microbes and soil structure mediate long-term soil organic carbon stabilization” (advisor Sharon Billings).
• Haley Burrill, doctoral student, “Confirming disease incidence pathogens to enhance evidence for mycorrhizal-induced resistance to pathogens, as detected in common prairie plants” (advisor Jim Bever). 
• Alexandria Hoffpauir, postbaccalaureate student, “The role of soil microbial community, plant species richness and phylogenetic diversity, on the suppression of weeds” (advisor Jim Bever).
• Lola Klamm, graduate student, “Understanding soil aggregate turnover to predict soil-climate feedbacks” (advisor Sharon Billings).
• Luke Ungerer, junior, “Analyzing how temperature and phytoplankton community composition influence zooplankton community composition and size distribution.” (advisor Ted Harris).

Students mentored by our scientists also received other honors and awards this year, including the following:

• Ligia Souza (advisor Sharon Billings) and Theo Michaels (advisors Jim Bever and Ben Sikes), doctoral students, received awards for their presentations at the lightning talks competition held during the 2022 Kansas NSF EPSCoR Research Symposium.

• Carlos Schwindt (mentor Ben Sikes), won the Outstanding Presentation Award at the 2022 Online Undergraduate Research Symposium for his presentation “Understanding the mask mycobiome.”

• Kaitlyn Savoy (mentor Ben Sikes), was one of 54 undergraduates receiving $1,000 scholarships through KU’s Undergraduate Research Award for the project “Understanding environmental drivers of extremophile microbes for use in space.”

• Two students won awards for posters at the Governor's Water Conference, held in Manhattan in early November. Simmi Rana (mentor Amy Burgin), won the Governor’s Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research Poster for the poster “Groundwater influence on dissolved gasses in intermittent streams.” Luke Ungerer (mentor Ted Harris) was runner-up for the poster “Does trophic status or mixing regime alter zooplankton-driven clean water phases in the reservoirs of the Midwestern United States?”