More than 40 student-led research projects took center stage this week as Texas Tech’s Department of Natural Resources Management hosted its fifth annual Research Day, an event that has become a defining feature of the department’s academic year.
'NRM’s annual Research Day provides a valuable venue for our students to debut their finest and most innovative research, receive feedback, interact collegially and foster a culture of research excellence.'
Held Tuesday, April 21, at the Texas Tech Dairy Barn, the symposium brought together undergraduate and graduate students at varying stages of their academic careers, offering a professional-style forum where original research was presented, examined and discussed.
The symposium is as much workshop as it is showcase. Students are expected not only to present their findings, but to defend them - answering questions from faculty members, peers and visiting experts whose critiques often shape the next phase of research.
“NRM’s annual Research Day provides a valuable venue for our students to debut their finest and most innovative research, receive feedback, interact collegially and foster a culture of research excellence and professional scholarship,” said Richard Stevens, chair of the department and the Caesar Kleberg Endowed Professor of Wildlife Conservation.
For many participants, the experience serves as an early test of their readiness for larger stages, where expectations are higher and scrutiny more exacting. It is, in effect, a rehearsal for the broader academic world.
The scale of this year’s event reflected its steady growth. According to Carlos Portillo-Quintero, the symposium’s coordinator, 41 abstracts were submitted by students, with 16 judges evaluating the presentations.
“First of all, we again thank the support received from the department to make this event happen every year,” Portillo-Quintero said. “And thanks to all of the faculty and collaborators who volunteered as judges.”
Among the winning NRM students presenting research posters or presentations were:
Graduate
- First Place: (tied) Katherine Rollefson (Graduate) Biodiversity Declines in Macroinvertebrate Communities Along the Lower Pecos River, Texas; and William Britton (Graduate) Migratory Routes and Migration Characteristics of Zone-Tailed Hawks That Nest in West Texas
- Second Place: (tied) Katja Bastiaens (Graduate) A Comparison of Home Range Size for the Swift Fox in Northwest Texas; and Shaelyn Rainey (Graduate) Influence of Raw Milk Application on Native Grassland Production and Soil
- Third place: Diego Aviles (Graduate) Evaluation of Grazing Behavior and Performance of Beef Heifers under Different Shade Locations Relative to Water Access
Undergraduate
- First Place: Joisalyn Tarno | Effects of Environmental Factors and Mesopredator Associations on Ringtail Detection in the Texas Hill Country
- Second Place : Callie Cartwright | Initial Results of Bat Surveys on a Sustainably Managed, Working Ranch in North-Central Texas
- Third Place: Lilian Prescott | Food or Foe: Does the Louisiana crayfish, Procambarus clarkii, pose a threat to native crayfish in the Southern High Plains?
Three Minute Thesis Presentation (3MT)
- First Place: (tied) Sadie Roth (Graduate) Aquatic Breeding in a Dry Land: Determining Drivers of Amphibian Water Site Use and Reproductive Success in the Sonoran Desert; and Eden Brody (Graduate) Ecological Thresholds in Great Plains Fish Assemblages: Responses to Agriculture, Development, and Habitat Fragmentation
Among other NRM students presenting research posters or presentations are:
Graduate Posters
- Sahel Azizkhani (Graduate) Spatiotemporal Analysis of Urban Green Space Dynamics Using Random Forest and Spectral Indices in Lubbock, Texas
- George Gyan (Graduate) Assessing the Impacts of Beaver Dam Analogs on Water and Streambed Sediment Quality After Mining and Wildfire
- Bishnu Ghimire (Graduate) Remote Sensing Based Estimation of Aboveground Biomass in Mixed Grass Pastures
- Badri Ghimire (Graduate) Effects of varying fire intensities on seed viability in Arizona cypress (Hesperocyparis arizonica)
- Amanda Newman (Graduate) Effects of Roadways on Bat Activity and Distribution in East Texas
- Sarah Montalvo (Graduate) Comparative Habitat Analyses for Co-Occurring Texas Raptor Species: Zone-Tailed Hawks, Gray Hawks, And Common Black Hawks
- Gabriela Scott-Mason (Graduate) Evaluating the Effectiveness of Habitat Restoration Under a CCAA Framework for Dunes Sagebrush Lizard in the Monahan’s Sandhills
- Baylee Moyer (Graduate) Hydroclimatic Drivers of Reproductive Activity in Sonoran Desert Amphibians
- Vaughn Smith (Graduate) Investigating Deep Learning Capabilities in Mesquite Detection and Landcover Classification on the Texas Tech Rangeland
- Makani Fisher (Postdoc) Characterizing the Niches and Distributions of North American Bats
- Jonathan McClellen (Graduate) Assessing Habitat Suitability for Swift Fox in the Rita Blanca National Grassland
- Alice Mathew (Graduate) Effects of Woody Encroachment on Vegetation Composition and Avian Assemblage in the Rolling Plains
- Bailey Brashears (Postdoc) RanchCraft: Leveraging an Online Gaming Environment for Skill Development in Agricultural Education
- Jack Carlin (Graduate) Seeing the Scars: Measuring the Foundations of Restoration in War Landscapes
- Christopher Carter (Graduate) Potential in Situ Viability of Mycoplasma Ovipneumoniae in a Freshwater Environment
- Jesse Haudrich (Graduate) Seasonal Variation of Nutritive Value and Mineralogy of Five Native Grass Species in the Texas High Plains and Rolling Plains
- Matthew Hewitt (Graduate) Using Measures of Space Use Stability to Inform Optimal Timing of Population Sampling
- Carsten Groos (Graduate) Resource Selection by Free-Ranging Big Game Species in the Texas Hill Country
- Angela Patrick (Graduate) Movement-Derived Contact Networks Reveal a New Framework for Understanding Disease Transmission in Aoudad and Bighorn Sheep
- Laken Mize (Graduate) The Influence of Source State Origin on Reproductive Performance of Translocated Eastern Wild Turkey Hens in East Texas
- Olivia Strong (Graduate) Defoliation Effects on Root Health of an Early Successional Native Grass
- Alondra Cruz (Graduate) Biomass of Planted and Existing Native Plant Mixtures in Till and No-Till Plots Receiving Groundwater, Polished Produced Water, or Rainfed Conditions
- Alice Matthew (Graduate) Mesocarnivore Activity and Diversity Across a Spectrum of Woody Encroachment in the Rolling Plains
Undergraduate Posters
- Yonatan Frechette | Optimal Locations for Two Types of Helicopter Water Refill Stations for Wildfire Suppression in Greater Ruidoso, New Mexico
- Ryan Thornton | Assessing Risk of Microplastic Exposure from White Crappie to Recreational Anglers in West Texas
- Carson Keeney | Northern Bob-white Quail Relationship Between Molting and Precipitation
- Emmalee Balch | Measuring Information Comprehension with and Without Hands-on Recourses
- Sarai Rocha | Environmental DNA (eDNA) detection of testudines of the Pecos River, Texas
- Sarah Cardner | Temporal Variation in Culvert Use Among Spilogale Graculis in Organ Pipe Cacus National Monument
3MT Presentations
- Hannah Adams (Graduate) Linking Fish Assemblage Turnover to Dynamics of Flow and Salinity
- Derek Malone (Graduate) Survey Methodology and Population Estimate for the Texas Kangaroo Rat
CONTACT: Richard Stevens, Chair and Caesar Kleberg Endowed Professor of Wildlife Conservation, Department of Natural Resources Management, Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources, Texas Tech University at (806) 834-6843 or richard.stevens@ttu.edu
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