Wendy Jepson received the Glasscock Faculty Research Fellowship for 2013-2014 ($5,000) to support the project Colonias Biopolitics: Mobilizing a ‘Health Crisis’ for Water Development. This work will become a chapter for her book in-progress, Quiescent Waters: Politics, Neoliberal Subjectivity, and the State in Drinking Water Provision for South Texas Colonias.  Congratulations Wendy!

 

 

Applied Biodiversity Science Trainee Dhananjaya Katju, a PhD candidate in the Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences Department, was awarded a competitive Graduate Research Fellowship from the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research. Dhananjaya will use the award to fund his continuing doctoral field-research on the political ecology of environmental non-compliance in the Manas Tiger and Biosphere Reserve in northwestern India and its outcomes for local bird species.  His work argues for grounded analyses of the geographically specific processes mediating noncompliance in the form of ‘encroachment’ with the aim of understanding it as a highly contested process, embedded within particular socio-economic, political, and environmental agendas, and with the potential for unexpected ecological consequences.  To address this uncertainty, his project will explore connections between socio-political organization, land use practices, encroachment, and avian conservation.  Dhananjaya’s work is expected to contribute to the increasing recognition of tropical protected areas as dynamic social-ecological systems.

 

David Toledo, an ABS-IGERT Trainee in the Department of  Ecosystem Science and Management, was honored at an awards ceremony on April 29, 2013, where he was one of 16 recipients of the 2013 Distinguished Graduate Awards given by The Association of Former Students at Texas A&M University.

Each year, The Association of Former Students at Texas A&M recognizes 15 graduate students with a Distinguished Graduate Student Award in one of three categories: Excellence in Research-Doctoral, Excellence in Research-Master’s, or Excellence in Teaching. The students are nominated by their faculty advisors or their departments. The award recipients are chosen by a panel of reviewers, which includes faculty and administrators.

Toledo, who graduated in December 2012, was recognized for outstanding accomplishment in Research. David’s doctoral research, conducted under the advisement of Dr. Urs Kreuter, focused on the socio-ecological factors influencing the use of prescribed fire and, by extension, the effects of these factors on the function, conservation, and restoration of ecosystems. He studied the interaction of these factors and how they vary depending on the specific social, political, and ecological contexts in which they are examined. View a video where he discusses his research in more detail here.

His research has been published in important journals relevant to his field of study and he has presented in regional, national and international meetings. David has also received several awards for his doctoral research including the Judges Choice Award for the NSF-IGERT poster and video competition and the Texas Section of The Society for Ecological Restoration award for best graduate student research presentation. Dr. David Toledo is now a Research Rangeland Management Specialist at the USDA-ARS Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory in Mandan, North Dakota where he is responsible for improving ecological indicators of rangeland and pastureland health.

Information about the other awardees can be found here.

 

 

 

Mike Treglia won the E.E. Williams Award from the Herpetologists’ League in the Conservation Category for his proposal to do research on ecohydrology and the endangered Arroyo Toad.

Congratulations Mike!