The Student Programs Committee of the WFO Board of Directors is pleased to announce the recipients of six research grants for 2024. Now in its fifth year, WFO’s student research grant program has had a larger number of applicants in each succeeding year. As in previous years, we had many more applicants than we could support, and we wish all applicants success in their endeavors. Thanks to a very generous donation from WFO Board member Debbie Van Dooremolen, we were able to add three additional grants. The Student Programs Committee and WFO Board deeply appreciate the support of donors to our student scholarship and research grant programs.

William Anderson

William Anderson is a master’s student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado. During the summer of 2024, he will be using whole genome sequencing to clarify the phylogenetic and taxonomic relationships of the Northern Pygmy-Owl, with the goal of establishing the status of each of the subspecific groups. Will is also using vocal analysis as part of the study.

Konshau Duman

A PhD student at the University of California, Davis, Konshau Duman has been studying the diet of Red Crossbills during the summer period when available conifer seed is at its annual low yet alternative food sources such as insects, buds, and staminate cones are highly available. This year he will focus on analyzing habitat differences, including differences in the availability of conifer seeds and insects, in the context of understanding the nomadic behavior of these enigmatic birds, and the differences in nomadic behavior of the various ecotypes of this species.

Sara Garcia

Sara Garcia is a PhD student at the University of Colorado. Sara is investigating Barn Swallow populations along an urban-rural gradient in Boulder County. She will analyze whether and how site-level and nest-level environments and associated nestling development vary across an urban-rural gradient. This widespread species is an ideal model system for studying the effects of human development on populations of birds.

Lauren Hill

Lauren Hill is a MS student at California State University, Los Angeles. Lauren’s research will use four years of bird banding data and tail feather samples collected from spring migratory seasons at Bear Divide between 2021 and 2024 to examine the genetic population structure of Wilson’s and Yellow Warblers at Bear Divide of the San Gabriel Mountains by identifying the probable breeding origins of sub-populations across years; determine differences in timing of passage between sub-populations across years; and identify differences in migratory body condition among sub-populations.

Ari Rice

A PhD student at Texas Tech University, Ari is studying a hybrid zone between Colima and Virginia’s Warblers in the Davis Mountains of west Texas. This hybrid zone, on an isolated sky island, is interesting because Colima Warblers were not known at the location until 1999 and remain rare, yet the population is now dominated by intermediate birds. Ari will be testing the hypothesis that some characteristics of Colima Warblers are adaptive, and that the associated genes have spread rapidly through what was once a population dominated by Virginia’s Warbler.

Jessica Schaefer

Jessica Schaefer is a PhD student at the University of California, Davis. Social polyandry is a mating system in which individual females pair and reproduce with multiple males, parental care is performed mostly by males, and sexual selection is more intense in females than males (a suite of traits often termed “sex role reversal”). Jessica is testing the hypothesis that female Spotted Sandpipers experience a trade-off between parental and mating effort, such that total parental care of females decreases as their number of mates increases. Jessica’s field study is at Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra Nevada of California.