BISC Achievements at the Entomological Society of British Columbia Meeting!

Gries Lab graduate and undergraduate students distinguished themselves with awards and honours at the Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of British Columbia, in Kamloops, on September 15th!

Of the seven available awards/scholarships, SFU Biological Science members earned six! Thank you and congrats to all who participated and worked so hard.

Oral Presentation Awards

Best PhD Presentation - Sam Meraj
“Functional insights into Prolixicin: Its expression and efficacy as an antimicrobial peptide in bed bugs"

Best Masters Presentations - Claire Gooding ("Ticks utilize a saprophytic fungus to identify suitable resting sites") and Saif Nayani ("Bovine mastitis, Staphylococcus aureus and stable flies: Evidence for a (not so positive) positive feedback loop")

Best Undergrad Presentation - Charlotte Pinard
"Blacklegged ticks, Ixodes scapularis, reduce predation risk by eavesdropping on ant alarm communication".

Congratulations to Claire Gooding, who won the ESBS Graduate Scholarship Award.

And special congratulations to Saif Nayani for winning the Dexter Johnson Award for Best Paper published this year, with his work, "Staphylococcus microbes in the bovine skin microbiome attract blood-feeding stable flies. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11, 1212222".

Thank you for all your hard work and dedication! SFU Biological Sciences looks forward to seeing what all of you do next!