Cody Clements and Tim Fegel win the #ESA2016 Buell and Braun student awards

Posted by llester on June 3, 2016

ESA presents the Murray F. Buell and E. Lucy Braun Awards for an outstanding research talk and poster presented by students at the Annual Meeting.

Cody Clements

Panel members at the Centennial Annual Meeting of the ESA in Baltimore, Md. (August 2015) honored Cody S. Clements, a graduate student in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Ga., with the Buell Award for his presentation “Seaweeds protect corals from predatory starfish: competitors become accomplices as reefs degrade” (abstract). His work is highly significant because it speaks to reef species interactions that may mitigate coral loss due to climate and ocean pH shifts. It has important management implications and tests foundational concepts about context dependence in species interactions. Reviewers commented on the creativity of the experimental methodology, thorough controls and multiple approaches to the hypothesis. They praised the clarity and pacing of the presentation, supported with well-chosen photos, video and charts.

Tim Fegel

Panel members honored Timothy Fegel, a graduate student at Colorado State University, with the Braun Award for his poster “Biogeochemical attributes of ice glaciers and rock glacier in low latitude alpine ecosystems” (abstract). The amount and quality of nutrients, metals, and contaminants coming into water bodies from melted glaciers can have a huge impact in those water bodies’ communities and cascade down to other levels of the ecosystem. Mr. Fegel sampled microbial communities in a large number of glacier meltwaters across several mountain ranges. His work is a timely and important study under the impending increased glacier melting due to climate change. Reviewers praised his poise and articulate engagement with questions, and the clear layout of information on the poster.

ESA will present the 2016 awards during the 2016 Annual Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Fl. The awards ceremony will take place on Monday, August 8, at 8 AM in the Floridian Ballroom AB, Greater Fort Lauderdale/Broward County Convention Center.

Read about all of the 2016 award winners in the awards master post.

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