Victor Hutchison Graduate Poster Award
The SSAR graduate student poster awards honor Victor Hutchison for his extensive contributions to herpetology and the development of future herpetologists. We held the 14th annual SSAR Victor Hutchison Student Poster competition in Ann Arbor on 28 June 2024. Awardees received a check for US $250 and a SSAR book
Many thanks to this year’s judges:
Patrick Baker (United States Military Academy), Micah Nneji (Howard University), Chris Parkinson (Clemson University), Theodora Pinou (Western Connecticut State University), RJ Rao (Jiwaji University), Bibiana Rojas (University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna), Ed Stanley (Florida Museum of Natural History), and Meredith Swartwout (University of Toronto Mississauga).
The 2024 recipients of the Hutchison Graduate Poster Award are:
Physiology and Morphology
Sudipta Kalita (University of Dayton), “Functional morphology of the lower jaw in fanged frogs”
Evolution, Genetics, & Systematics
Mustafa Erkaya (Villanova University), “Population structure analysis of geckos of the genus Bavayia (Diplodactylidae) by utilization of rapidly evolving long exon capture (RELEC) datasets”
Conservation & Management
Adam Austin (Western Michigan University/ The Rattlesnake Conservancy), “Efficacy of a novel eDNA assay in locating a lost aquatic salamander”
Ecology, Natural History, Distribution, & Behavior
Ricardo Gibert (California State University Northridge), “Does competition explain the regional supplantation of Mediterranean house geckos (Hemidactylus turcicus) in Gulf Coast states?”
George B. Rabb Undergraduate Poster Award
SSAR’s George B. Rabb Undergraduate Poster Award is sponsored by Zoo Atlanta and honors our colleague George Rabb (1930-2017), former Director of the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, IL, and highly respected advocate and spokesman for wildlife conservation. 2024 marked the 6th year of this competition and the largest group of competitors to date, with 19 posters. Due to the number of posters, for the first time two awards were given and three posters were chosen for honorable mention. The recipients received a check for US $250 and a SSAR book.
Many thanks to this year’s judges:
Avi Berger (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign), Emily Bierbaum (University of Tulsa), Lauren Chan (California Polytechnic State University), Dick Durtsche (Northern Kentucky University), Harrison Goldspiel (University of Maine), Aaron Griffing (Princeton University), Marina Gerson (California State University, Stanislaus), Chun Kamei (Field Museum of Natural History), Bonnie Kircher (The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center), and Shelby Timm (Missouri Department of Conservation).
The honorable mentions are:
In Ecology and Behavior: Jaden Kinney (Loyola University New Orleans) “Does social environment impact multimodal signaling in bird-voiced tree frogs (Hyla avivoca)?”
In Conservation and Management: Celina Eberle (University of New Mexico) “Invasion genetics of introduced bullfrogs (Rana catesbeina) in New Mexico”
In Development and Morphology: Riley Stanton (Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates), “Do big mouths make bad biters? Gape limitations appear to constrain evolution in the jaws of snakes”
The award recipients are:
In Physiology: Madeline Russelburg (Benedictine University), “Validating the use of bacterial killing assays to investigate immune health of spotted turtles living in contaminated environments
In Evolution and Genetics: Jonathan Eubanks and Hayden Hanna (Louisiana State University Shreveport), “Phylogenetics and rang-wide phylogeography of Garthia – a phyllodactylid gecko genus endemic to Chile”