Graduate students in the Department of Entomology excelled at the annual meeting of the Pacific Branch Entomological Society of America, June 10-13 in Reno, Nev., winning in all of the student competition categories.
In the Linnean Games competition, which challenges mastery of entomological facts, the WSU team of Jimmy Hepler, Dane Elmquist, Abbey Hayes, Megan Asche, and Adrian Marshall beat University of California-Riverside in the first match, then came in second during a sudden-death tie-breaker to a combination UC Davis/UC Berkeley team. They now go on to compete at the national ESA meeting this November.
Elmquist took first place in the master’s paper competition, followed by Liesl Oeller in third.
Asche took first in the master’s poster competition, with Josh Milnes earning second place.
Marshall took first place in the doctoral poster competition.
Hepler took first, Marshall second in the texting competition. Hepler took first, Elmquist third in the “Elevator Talk” competition.
Doctoral student Kunle Adesanya won the Society’s John Henry Costock Award, which promotes interest in entomology at the graduate level and builds interest in attending the ESA Annual Meeting.
Faculty member Doug Walsh gave Adesanya’s acceptance speech, as he was unable to attending, being accepted into the Borlaug Institute on Food Security at Purdue University for the summer.