ASU Students Take Top Honors at State Mammalogists Meeting

ASU junior Katelynn Frei won the Vernon Bailey Award for the best research poster presentation in classical mammalogy for her project “Use of Camera Trapping to Determine Patterns of Habitat Use by Medium-Sized Mammals in West-Central Texas.” ASU graduate student Wesley Brashear won the William B. Davis Award for best oral research presentation in classical mammalogy for his project “Den Site Selection of the American Hog-Nosed Skunk, Conepatus leuconotus, in West-Central Texas.”

More than 135 students and faculty representing 32 universities in six states attended the annual TSM meeting. Five other ASU students also made poster presentations, including undergraduates Candace Frerich and Andrea Lewis, and graduate students Sarah Bartlett, Tyler Cochran and Marie Tipps. The featured speaker was ASU alumnus Dr. Darin Carroll, a disease ecologist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Also at the meeting, ASU biology professor Dr. Terry Maxwell wrapped up his one-year term as TSM president, and Dr. Loren Ammerman, ASU associate professor of biology, was re-elected to a second two-year term as secretary/treasurer.

The Texas Society of Mammalogists was established in 1983 to promote the study of mammals, both living and fossil. Anyone with a sincere interest in the field of mammalogy is eligible for membership, though most members are professional scientists or students of the field. Organized meetings are held annually to provide opportunities for students to present the results of their research projects and to interact with professional mammalogists working in the state of Texas.