The Illinois Natural History Survey has presented awards to eight graduate students for their research accomplishments. Among the awardees include the following:

Rachel Moran won a Philip W. Smith Memorial Award for Research in Natural History for her project “Speciation Via Male-Driven Character Displacement in Darters.” The fund provides research support for graduate students in the fields of systematics or ecology of living organisms.

Lisa Mitchum, Department of Animal Biology, received the R. Weldon Larimore Scholarship in Research for Stream Ecology for her project “Color Vision in Largemouth Bass.”

Linnea Meier, Entomology Department, won a William H. Luckmann Award for Student Research in Applied Entomology. The fund provides support for student attendance and presentation of research at a professional society meeting.  Her research project is titled “Species-Specific Blends of Shared Pheromone Components Minimize Interspecific Attraction Between Two Species of Cerambycid Beetles in the Subfamily Lamiinae.”

The following students have received the Herbert Holdsworth Ross Memorial Fund, which provides research support for graduate students in the field of systematics, including taxonomy, phylogeny, biogeography, and related subjects.

Daniel Raudabaugh, "Taxonomy of Freshwater Fungi from Alkaline Stream and Bog Habitats"

Christian Millan-Hernandez, "Determining the Evolutionary Forces Driving Dryinidae (Hymenoptera: Chrysidoidea) Diversity"

Hannah Wahl, "Systematics and Biodiversity of Fungi Found in Deep-Water Sediments of the Great Lakes"

Aron Katz, "Comparative Phylogeography of Codistributed Cave-Adapted Springtails (Collembola)"

Kyle Parks, "A Phylogenetic Survey of Gene Evolution in an Endosymbiotic Virus, Polydnavirus, in Response to Parasitoid Host Switching in Parapanteles (Braconidae: Microgastrinae), a Parasitoid of Macrolepidopteran Caterpillars."