Student Hottest Paper Award

The Student Hottest Paper Award is presented annually to a UTM Biology Graduate Student who published the “hottest” paper in the preceding calendar year. For example, this June we will announce the winner of the best graduate student paper published in 2020.

The criteria for the award are as follows:

1. The paper must be a peer-reviewed published article presenting original work (e.g., new data and results, equations/theories, resources or methods).

2. The student must have taken a leading role in the published work either as first author or co-first author.

3. The majority of the research in the paper must have been conducted while the student was in UTM Biology. Present and former students are both eligible to win the award so long as their paper was published in the preceding year.

The winner, plus two runner-ups, will be selected by a committee that represents the breadth of research interests in the department. The prize will be a cash-prize plus a name on a plaque that will be displayed beside the Hot Student Paper board.

Winner of the 2021 Hottest Paper Award

• Mathew Bergman Distinct metabolic pathways drive monoterpenoid biosynthesis in a natural population of Pelargonium graveolens (rose scented geranium)

Runner Up:

• Celina Baines Parasitism risk and infection alter host dispersal

Winner of the 2020 Hottest Paper Award

• Arthur Cheng (SOX2-Dependent transcription in clock neurons promotes the robustness of the central circadian pacemaker)

Runner Up:

• Arjan Banerjee (Caught in action: fine scale plastome evolution in the parasitic plants of Cuscuta section Ceratophorae (Convolvulaceae)
• Tim Fernandes (Coping with the cold: energy storage strategies for surviving winter in freshwater fish)

Previous Winners

• 2019 Connor Fitzpatrick (Assembly and ecological function of the root microbiome across angiosperm plant species)
• 2018 Shirin Mollayeva (The involvement of Rhopr-CRF/DH in feeding and reproduction in the blood-gorging insect Rhodnius prolixus)
• 2016 - Christine Chang (Elevated temperature and CO₂ stimulate late-season photosynthesis but impair cold hardening in pine)
• 2015 - Neel Mehta, Arthur Cheng and Lucia Mendoza-Viveros (GRK2 fine-tunes circadian clock speed and entrainment via transcriptional and post-translational control of PERIOD proteins)
• 2014
  • Winner - Charlotte de Araujo (Identification and characterization of a carboxysomal gamma-carbonic anhydrase form the cyanobacterium Nostoc sp. PCC 7120)
  • Runner Up - Martin Turcotte (former PDF, Johnson Lab) and Nash Turley (former PhD candidate, Johnson Lab) (The impact of domestication on resistance to two generalist herbivores across 29 independent domestication events)
• 2013 - Joshua Krupp (Pigment-dispersing factor modulates pheromone production in clock cells that influence mating in Drosophila - Neuron)
• 2012 - Jonathan Schneider (Social structures depend on innate determinants and chemosensory processing in Drosophila - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
• 2011 - Lucas Parreiras (Cellular effects and epistasis among three determinants of adaptation in experimental populations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae - Eukaryotic Cell)