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Student Presentation Awards

2009 Presentation Award winners: G. A. Bravo, M. C. Stoddard, M. W. Tingley

Students presenting a poster or oral paper at an AOU meeting may apply to be considered for a student presentation award. Four awards will be given, including an award (the Robert B. Berry Student Award) for the most outstanding presentation on research pertaining to avian conservation.

Deadline: 1 May 2011, 12 noon (EST). The online application form will be taken down at that time.

To be eligible, applicants must be:

  1. Sole author or lead author of a poster or oral paper presented by the student at the meeting.
  2. A full-time or recently graduated student. Students graduating the semester prior to the meeting are also eligible for presentation awards. Undergraduate students are also eligible for presentation awards.
  3. A member of the AOU at the time of registration. Students who are not currently members are encouraged to become members, and thereby become eligible for student awards, before registering for the meeting. Students may also be eligible for AOU Student Membership Awards.
  4. Cannot be presenting in a symposia.

Travel and presentation award applications use the same online submission form. Submit only one application, even if you are applying for multiple awards.

Awards will be made based on quality of both research and presentation. Presentation Awards have a limit of once per lifetime. Students may receive both a research award and a travel award in the same year.

In 2012, AOU will participate in the 5th North American Ornithology Conference, which will take place 14-18 August at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. For this large joint meeting, students may compete for presentation awards through a single collective program; to participate, students must submit applications to the awards committee by 29 February 2012, which is also the deadline for separately submitting an Abstract for a place on the Scientific Program.

2011 Winners, 127th Stated Meeting, Jacksonville

AOU PRESENTATION awards were given at the annual banquet to four students for excellence in the rigor and quality of their scientific papers. (Berry Award)  The award for the best student conservation presentation was presented to KRISTEN DYBALA, University of California, Davis, for "Age matters: adult and juvenile survival rates will respond differently to climate change." 

The three general awards are unranked and were presented to ALLISON COX, University of Missouri, for "Prospecting behavior, post-fledging survival, and the influence of forest cover during natal dispersal in a resident bird;" 

REBECCA HEISS, University of Memphis, for "Oxidative stress and trade-offs in the cooperatively breeding Florida Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens);" and 

CHRISTOPHER TONRA, University of Maine, for "The role of testosterone in seasonal interactions: observational and experimental studies in the American Redstart."

2010 Winners, 128th Stated Meeting, San Diego

These awards are unranked and were presented at the annual banquet to KATHI BORGMANN of the Univ. Arizona, Tucson, for "The nest-concealment paradox: new insights from empirical, comparative, and experimental approaches," 

RUSSELL LIGON of Auburn Univ. for "Feeding sexy sons sometimes: feeding decisions of eastern bluebirds are situationally influenced by fledgling plumage color," and 

DAIZABURO SHIZUKA of U. C. Santa Cruz for "Coots use hatch order to learn to recognize and reject conspecific brood parasitic chicks." 

The Berry Award for the best student conservation presentation was awarded to PETER EPANCHIN of U. C. Berkeley, for "Indirect effects of nonnative fish on the Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch."

2009 Winners, 127th Stated Meeting, Philadelphia

Morgan Tingley (University of California, Berkeley, “Birds track their Grinnellian niche in response to a century 1 of climate change”) - AOU Student Conservation Award

Mary Caswell Stoddard (University of Cambridge, “Host egg pattern mimicry by the Common Cuckoo, Cuculus canorus: objective methods based on avian visual perception”) - AOU Nellie Johnson Baroody Award

Gustavo A. Bravo (Louisiana State University, “Phylogenetic analysis of phenotypic divergence in the antbirds”) - AOU Council Award

Jason Keagy (University of Maryland, “Male general cognitive ability influences male mating success in the Satin Bowerbird”) - AOU Council Award