The 2018 Undergraduate Research Fair on Thursday, April 5 was a great success. The fair featured 27 posters from 18 different labs. The quality and professionalism of our undergrad project students was astounding, matched only by their knowledge and enthusiasm for the diverse and interesting research they took part in!

Please give special compliments to our Poster Prize winners! This year we had four categories, with an award winner and runner-up in each. As usual, it was a challenge for our panel of judges to make their selections. Congratulations go to…

Poster prize awardees (left to right, with award certificates): Mallika Makkar (Ecology & Evolution of Disease, Mideo Lab), Lydia Hagar Wong (Evolutionary Ecology, Thomson Lab), Atticus Murphy (Conservation & Ecology, Frederickson Lab), and Josiah Butt (Sexual Selection & Genetics, Wright Lab).

Honorable mention awardees (left to right): Malak Bayoumi (Sexual Selection & Genetics, Agrawal Lab), Matthew Lindsay (Sexual Selection & Genetics, Agrawal Lab), Cole Brookson (Conservation & Ecology, Fortin Lab), Nicolotte Zukowski (Ecology & Evolution of Disease, Krkosek Lab), Christopher Reid (Evolutionary Ecology, Frederickson Lab).

I want to thank all of the student participants and for devoting so much care, thought and passion to their research. I also want to thank their supervisors for giving our undergrads these amazing research opportunities! This includes professors as well as the immense effort put in by grad student and postdoc mentors. This year’s panel of judges faced the tough job of selecting prize winners from the impressive collection of posters: Santiago Claramunt, Marie-Josee Fortin, Megan Frederickson, Megan Greischar, Roxana Khoshravesh, Julia Kreiner, Luke Mahler, Anna O’Brien, Edward W. Tekwa, and Corlett Wood. Thanks all of you!

Finally, we should all be grateful to the hard work of the undergrad office staff for putting the event together! Thanks to Colleen de Borst Kerluk, Amy Huynh, and Jesse Adigwe for their event coordination and set-up efforts. Thanks also goes out to the department chair Don Jackson and his continued financial support for the Research Fair, which is critical to making it a success.

Thank you,
Asher Cutter