Honoraria and Travel Awards

Chair

• Melissa I. Pardi (mel.pardi@gmail.com)

Members

History and Mission

President W. H. Burt established the Honoraria Committee in 1953 as the Committee on Honoraria for Graduate Students.  Its name was shortened to ‘Honoraria Committee’ in 1968. In 2012, awarding of travel awards was added to the committee’s function and the name was changed to the ‘Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee'; and in 2020, Care Assistance Travel Awards were added. Thus, the committee has several missions. The first is to select graduate students to be honored for their research in mammalogy. At present four named awards, recognizing key historical contributors to the Society and its students, are given: the Anna M. Jackson Award, the A. Brazier Howell Award, the Elmer C. Birney Award, and the Annie M. Alexander Award. The Alexander Award is for master's students only, while either master's or doctoral students are eligible for the other three awards. Graduate Student Honoraria recipients are awarded a stipend to attend the Annual Meeting, where they have the honor of presenting their papers at the opening Plenary Session. Second, the committee selects recipients of up to two Undergraduate Student Honoraria. Recipients of the undergraduate awards are awarded a stipend to attend the meetings where they will give either an oral or poster presentation during regular concurrent technical sessions. Finally, the committee gives Travel Awards to help offset meeting travel costs to ASM members who are early in their professional careers, and to student members at any rank, and to support those needing care assistance to attend the meeting. The role of the committee is to advertise these awards widely, to receive and review application materials, and to select awardees. 

Responsibilities

The duty of this committee is to select graduate students and undergraduates to be honored for their research in mammalogy and to provide travel awards to early career mammalogists, to those needing support for dependents when traveling, and to students at any rank by advertising the awards, receiving and reviewing application material, and selecting awardees.

Currently awards are advertised in the Journal of Mammalogy, on the ASM website, in ASM social media, and on the Mammal-L listserv.

The application process for Honoraria is online and the deadline is 11:59 pm Eastern time on 15 February. Applications are forwarded to the committee members for review as quickly as practical after the deadline.

Honoraria applications are ranked and returned to the committee Chair in early March. Rankings are summed by the Chair and awardees determined. If there is ambiguity in the initial rankings from the committee, the Chair facilitates consensus by contacting the committee for further discussion. Results are sent to the applicants around 15 March.

Applications for Travel Awards are completed through the submission of abstracts forto the Annual Meeting. Committee members review abstracts for quality and content, and the potential for the presentation to be novel and of broad appeal. 

Names of award recipients must be provided to the Program Committee by the end of March to ensure that the information is printed in the program.

The Chair should ensure that a new announcement for each award type is submitted to the Editor of the Journal of Mammalogy and posted on the website. The initial change to Journal of Mammalogy must be submitted by 1 August; thereafter, the announcement appears without special submission.

Streaming Presentations 

ASM Members can log into the Business Office site and stream presentations from past winners!

The Anna M. Jackson Award is named in honor of Anna M. Jackson, one of the 16 female Charter Members of ASM (out of 435 total) when it was founded in 1919.  Like many of her female contemporaries, Anna's involvement with the world beyond her doorstep was through her husband, Hartley (pictured here with her), who is considered the person most responsible for the founding of ASM.  Anna did most of the record-keeping and typing and handled correspondence and other papers of the Society during its formative period, when Hartley served as ASM secretary.  Anna also accompanied Hartley on field expeditions, where she assisted with botanical collections, and was present at the organizational meeting of ASM. The Jackson Award was first given by the Society in 1970.  

The A. Brazier Howell Award recognizes A. Brazier Howell, a charter member of the Society who also served as President, Vice President, Journal Editor and Corresponding Secretary.  Like many early mammalogists, he was first trained as an ornithologist, but soon saw the error in his ways and contributed to many areas of mammalogy, notably in anatomy and systematics.  He was also a talented artist, musician and wood worker.  In 1959, he provided the endowment that is the source of this award, which was first given in 1961.

The Elmer C. Birney Award (formerly the ASM Award) is the Society's oldest student honorarium, established in 1951. In 2001, it was re-named in honor of Elmer Birney, a long-time member and past President of ASM.  Dr. Birney was a professor at the University of Minnesota for 40 years and served as curator of mammals of the Bell Museum of Natural History, where he is perhaps best known for his work on the physiology and ecology of grassland rodents.  He served the Society in many ways, including as Managing and Journal Editor for the Journal of Mammalogy and its Special Publications.  One of the hallmarks of his service was his long-standing commitment to graduate education, as an advisor, mentor, and teacher, as well as increasing participation of young people in the Society.

The Annie M. Alexander Award was established in 2012 to recognize the contributions of master's-level students to research in mammalogy.  Its namesake is Annie Alexander, an intrepid naturalist, field biologist and paleontologist who was responsible for the establishment and early success of the University of California’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.  Along with Louise Kellogg, her companion of 40 years, she made numerous collecting expeditions throughout California and western North America.  She was a Charter Member of ASM and its first female Life Member, and actively promoted increasing opportunities for female graduate students in field biology and collections-based research.

Photo credits:  Anna Jackson (ASM Archives), A. Brazier Howell (pwrc.usgs.gov), Elmer Birney (ASM Archives), Annie Alexander (University of California Museum of Paleontology)

Undergraduate Honoraria: The American Society of Mammalogists supports and encourages undergraduate students to participate in research and engage in the annual meeting. This award is open to all undergraduate student members of ASM currently enrolled in an undergraduate program, or who graduated in the just-completed fall or winter term, and who have participated in mammal research.

Travel Awards: ASM recognizes the value and importance of participation in the Annual Meeting as a way to become connected to the Society and its members, to forge professional relationships and collaborations, and to take advantage of the Annual Meeting as a mechanism for communicating highest-caliber research results. The Society offers nominal Travel Awards to help offset costs for students and early-career (within 5 years of their terminal degree) members of ASM to participate in the Annual Meeting.

Care Assistance Award: This award is intended to provide financial support for active ASM members whose responsibilities for care of dependents or need for assistance themselves would limit their ability to attend and present at the Annual Meeting.

2020 Recipients

Jackson Award: Addison Allen is currently finishing the last year of her Master’s in Biology at the University of Oklahoma in Dr. Hayley Lanier’s lab. Addison’s research concerns the short- and long-term effects of differing fire intervals on small mammal communities in Yellowstone. She focuses on dietary competition and the driving factors of community structure change with respect to succession stage. She is testing the role of competition using long-term mammal community data from sites established after the 1988 Yellowstone fires, which experienced a new set of fires in 2016. Using stable isotope analysis, she is evaluating how shifts in diet and space use between two dominant small mammals (voles and deermice) fit expectations under a competitive exclusion and release model. Following her Master’s, Addison plans to pursue a PhD to continue studying drivers of ecological responses to anthropogenic climate change. She is particularly drawn to integrating species-level interactions into ecosystem processes and contributing to the understanding of how ecosystem functions are impacted by human-caused change.

Howell Award: Lisa L. Walsh received her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Michigan. She was advised by Priscilla Tucker, the 1984 Howell Award recipient. Lisa’s interest in evaluating how humans impact mammals was sparked when she saw a motorboat bounce off a manatee while interning with Save the Manatee Club. Her dissertation sought to better understand factors driving the Virginia opossum’s range expansion. In this research, she used museum specimens from 29 institutions to collect and analyze genetic material and stable isotope values across the opossum’s range. Lisa is passionate about biology education and professional development for instructors. Lisa is a postdoctoral researcher at the Danforth Plant Science Center where she is evaluating how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting STEM faculty and students. 

Birney Award: Saeideh Esmaeili is finishing a PhD in Ecology at the University of Wyoming under the supervision of Dr. Jake Goheen. Her dissertation is centered on the movements, human dimensions, and conservation of endangered onagers (Equus hemionus onager) in her home country of Iran. She received numerous grants from state and international agencies to conduct the first telemetry study of an herbivore species in the country. Also, she is interested in movement ecology of large herbivores in response to changes in habitat conditions such as availability of forage and water, for which she explored the effect of body size and digestive system on movement of 34 populations of free-ranging equids and ruminants across the globe. She became a member of ASM in 2016 and received two awards of Grant in Aid and Travel Award to present her research at ASM annual meetings. As a member of the IUCN Equid Specialist Group, she would like to follow her career in the field of ecology, conservation, and management of large herbivores, specifically horse populations. She will be pursuing her  interests through working as a postdoctoral fellow on spatial ecology and movement of feral burro and horses at the Colorado State University. 

Annie M. Alexander Award: Mariah Schlis-Elias recently (December 2019) finished her Master of Science in Biology at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, where she was advised by Dr. Jason Malaney. Mariah is interested in mammalian ecology, especially where it can inform policy decisions that help conserve distinct lineages of species. Her thesis focused on skull size and shape variation of island-dwelling meadow voles to evaluate Island Rule in the organism. Specifically, she tested multiple causal hypotheses of Island Rule, including ecological release and thermoregulation, to determine what factors best explain gigantism in some island populations of meadow voles. Mariah is currently searching for doctoral programs to further her education and pursue her research interests. In the meantime, she is continuing to teach classes at universities in middle Tennessee, taking opportunities to stay involved in research, and enjoying her time volunteering at a local wildlife rehabilitation clinic and nursery.
 

Undergraduate Awards: Ananth Miller-Murthy (is an undergraduate student at Yale University pursuing a B.S. in mathematics while taking many classes in ecology and evolutionary biology. Since middle school he has spent much of his free time looking for different species of reptiles and amphibians in the wild, and observing other animals and plants. Through this hobby he became interested in ecology and evolutionary biology. I am currently performing research on the taxonomy of treeshrews in southeast Asia under the guidance of Dr. Eric Sargis (Yale) and Neal Woodmann (USGS). During the summer of 2019 he spent a month collecting morphometric data on specimens of the lesser treeshrew (Tupaia minor) at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. He then analyzed this data to look for patterns and morphological differences between the populations found on different islands and areas of mainland southeast Asia. His work aims to inform our understanding of the species’ phylogeny, potentially leading to modifications of the species- and subspecies-level taxonomy of lesser treeshrews, which could have implications for conservation. Outside of mammal research, he works at the Peabody Museum of Natural History in preparing specimens and organizing the collections, and he submits observations of reptiles and amphibians in my home state of Kentucky to the Department of Fish and Wildlife. After graduating from Yale, he is strongly considering studying evolutionary biology in graduate school. 

Sandy Slovikosky completed her Bachelor’s degree within the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona, studying Wildlife Conservation and Management. Born in Germany and raised bilingual, she grew up with an awareness of the importance of international immersion. Her love of wildlife was also present from the beginning, and she knew early on that she wanted to work in conservation. Combining her interest in international cultures and languages with her passion for wildlife gave rise to the person she is today. Sandy conducted her first wildlife research project in high school under the guidance of Dr. Melanie Culver, during which she examined an urban development’s effects on wildlife via a camera trap study. She went on to present her work at the local and state science fairs. Her research endeavors continued during her undergraduate years, when she worked as a research assistant in Dr. John Koprowski’s Conservation Research Laboratory. Her senior project consisted of studying Mexican woodrat movement over burned patches on Mt. Graham in southeastern Arizona through the UA’s Undergraduate Biology Research Program, with the intent of understanding how species respond to disturbances. Several additional highlights from her undergraduate years included interning in South Africa with a wildlife monitoring group, and serving as president of the UA Fish and Wildlife Society. Sandy’s long-term goal is to become a research scientist studying endangered species internationally to enhance human-wildlife coexistence, and she is currently pursuing this goal as a Master’s student at SUNY ESF. Most importantly, Sandy is thankful for her exceptional lab group and could not be more grateful to her department at the University of Arizona, as well as ASM, TWS, and AFS, for providing her with numerous opportunities to grow professionally and personally!

2021 Recipients

Jackson Award: Ben Wiens is currently finishing his M.S. in Biology at Kansas State University in Dr. Andrew Hope’s lab. His research focuses on the systematics and evolutionary history of the Pribilof Island shrew, which is endemic to St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea. This endangered shrew was isolated from mainland sister taxa ~14 thousand years ago, and has since persisted under evolutionary pressures consistent with long-term isolation on small islands. Using traditional genetic markers coupled with a large genomic dataset, he investigated the evolutionary and demographic consequences of island isolation for this shrew in relation to its mainland counterparts. His research has implications for the conservation of this and other island species facing rapid contemporary climate change, and increases our understanding of the evolutionary forces that shape island biodiversity. Following his Master’s, Ben plans to continue research on the evolutionary biology of small mammals, with the goal of combining holistic small mammal collection with genomic approaches. He is particularly interested in studying the genomic basis of adaptation to changing environments, and in applying the results from this research to biodiversity conservation. To continue this research, he will soon join Dr. Jocelyn Colella’s lab at the University of Kansas to begin work on his PhD.

Howell Award: Carson Hedberg is a third year PhD student at the University of New Mexico studying mammal functional ecology in the lab of Dr. Felisa Smith.  Her research interests are broad, but all rooted in understanding and protecting the Earth’s biodiversity. In particular, she is motivated to apply insights from the fossil record to modern conservation challenges.  Her most recent research focused on how functional diversity and ecological resilience of a mammal community changed over the Late Quaternary in response to the megafaunal extinction and climate change. Her results highlight how prolonged biodiversity loss over time has eroded important ecosystem function and decreased redundancy behind ecological processes, heightening the potential consequences of present biodiversity decline. Her ongoing work seeks to understand how mammalian diversity is structured across various environments, and how restoring key functional roles can promote widespread ecological restoration. Her research interests in both paleoecology and modern conservation afford her a unique perspective to consider modern ecosystems within the context of historic and prehistoric ecological baselines. She hopes to pursue a career in research and conservation following the completion of her doctorate degree.

Birney Award: Miranda Crowell is finishing her Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation biology at University of Nevada, Reno advised by Drs. Marjorie Matocq, the 2001 Birney award winner, and Kevin Shoemaker. Her dissertation is one part of a collaborative project about the general ecology, genetic connectivity, and demography of pygmy rabbits across the Great Basin. Specifically, she is investigating how pygmy rabbit populations vary spatially and temporally and factors that may contribute to or be influenced by those variations such as burrow use, environmental characteristics, and how relatives are spatially distributed in relation to each other. Miranda has been working with pygmy rabbits for 9 years and through her expertise she helped secure a grant from the Nevada Department of Wildlife to conduct postdoctoral research on how fine-scale pygmy rabbit movement contributes to population shifts across the landscape over time – an observation made during her Ph.D. She has been a member of ASM since 2014, published twice in Journal of Mammalogy, and has received several travel grants in addition to the Annie M. Alexander award in 2015. Miranda hopes to continue researching lagomorphs and how individual behavior scales up to population level patterns in the future.

Annie M. Alexander Award: Elizabeth Agpalo. My expertise is in wildlife ecology and management, predominantly with bats. I recently finished my master’s degree in Environmental Sciences at Texas Christian University in December 2020 where my research involved investigating how bats used residential swimming pools as a water resource using thermal cameras and a variety of acoustic detectors. In addition, I have 11 years of bat research experience, including windfarm fatality monitoring in Kansas and Texas, passive and active acoustic transects monitoring using a range different ultrasonic detectors, bat call analysis using Sonobat and Kaleidoscope software, and behavioral observations using night vision technology. During 2 summer seasons in Missouri and Illinois, I mist-netted and radio-tracked female Indiana (Myotis sodalis), northern long-eared (Myotis septentrionalis), gray (Myotis grisescens), southeastern myotis (Myotis austroriparius), and eastern small-footed (Myotis leibii) bats, and used Anabat ultrasonic detectors and Analook software to collect and identify bat calls within the research areas. During the 2 winter seasons in Missouri, I conducted research in a lab monitoring white-nose syndrome on over 300 little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) per season, and monitored daily health and flight tests before release in the spring. Finally, I was involved in behavioral observations of bats in a controlled environment to explore ways to prolong the length of time radio-transmitters remain attached to bats. I hope to continue my career in this field of wildlife ecology and management.

Undergraduate Awards: Victoria Aguilar is finishing her bachelor’s degree in Biology at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León in México. She is passionate about wildlife, likes to explore, and has, for a long time being interested in mammals. Victoria has taken leadership roles as being president of the Student Association of Biologist (ASEBIO), she has organized different events like the symposium program "Biodiversity of Northeast Mexico”, workshops, talks, and volunteering in ecological parks. Since the beginning of her career, she wanted to become a mammologist so she started to attend meetings, workshops, and involving in the mammal’s laboratory of her school. Thanks to that, she became to be interested in wildlife management, scientific collections, biography, geographic information system, and especially on rare species. Her thesis focused on using Ecological Niche Methods (ENM) to modeling the potential distribution of the relict shrew Sorex milleri using small numbers of records and applying an exhaustive calibration under the guidance of Dr. Evelyn Rios, she also worked on projects about mammals collections and roadkill effects. Victoria goal is to become a researcher about ecology and biogeography of endemic species, she is currently searching for master’s programs to continue with her career.

Austin Nash is a Bachelor’s/Master’s accelerated student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with a certificate in GIS and computer science at the University of Colorado Boulder. Austin received his Bachelor’s degree Summa Cum Laude this spring and is continuing with his Master’s degree this fall, which he anticipates to complete in spring 2022. Austin’s career in mammalogy began when he was sixteen with the Mammal Lab at CSULB under Dr. Ted Stankowich conducting urban coyote surveys. After enrolling at CU Boulder, Austin joined the McCain Mountain Lab under PI Dr. Christy McCain. In the McCain lab, Austin runs two research projects related to how climate change influences the persistence of wildlife species. Firstly, Austin studies how the spatial arrangement of microclimates can create areas of more suitable conditions that are potentially only accessible to small-bodied mammals. Secondly, Austin is studying how changing climate and land use influence the persistence of Wyoming ground squirrel populations using occupancy and species distribution modeling. He is currently resurveying historical localities of Wyoming ground squirrels across Colorado and Wyoming. Also, Austin recently published his undergraduate honors thesis exploring how health influences alarm calling in yellow-bellied marmots (https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoaa020) in collaboration with the Blumstein Lab at UCLA. After graduating from the EBIO Bachelor’s/Accelerated Master’s program, Austin wishes to pursue a career as a research ecologist at a federal agency or in academia. He hopes to both generate ecological knowledge and inform the management of America’s public lands that have been a source of continuous wonder and growth for him throughout his life. Austin plans to pursue a Ph.D. at the intersection of behavioral and landscape ecology, to equip managers with an improved understanding of how animal behavior impacts wildlife conservation across landscapes in an era of rapid environmental change.

Anna M. Jackson Award

1970-1979

• 1970—Earl Zimmerman
• 1971—Donald Peden
• 1972—Kent Van De Graaf
• 1973—Kenyon Wagner
• 1974—Lynn Rogers
• 1975—Myrnal Hawes
• 1976—Leslie Carraway
• 1977—Paul Sherman
• 1978—Michael Bowers
• 1979—Daniel Vogt

1980-1989

• 1980—Frank Fish
• 1981—David Krause
• 1983—Tom Tomasi
• 1984—Kevin Murphy
• 1985—Robert Sullivan
• 1986—Paul Heideman
• 1987—Bradley Bergstrom
• 1988—Elizabeth Desy
• 1989—Ronald Debry

1990-1999

• 1990—Penny Reynolds
• 1991—James Reiger
• 1994—Tim Ginnett
• 1995—David Reed
• 1996—Paul Stapp
• 1997—Felicia Keesing
• 1998—Eric Schauber
• 1999—Jay Storz

2000-2009

• 2000—Christy McCain
• 2001—Christine Hice
• 2002—James Wilson
• 2003—Jacob Goheen
• 2004—Jessica Light
• 2005—Sacha Vignieri
• 2007—Karen Mabry
• 2008—Katherine Thorington
• 2009—Jennifer Smith

2010-2019

• 2010—Michael Dixon
• 2011—Julie Woodruff
• 2012—Lawrence "Mark" Elbroch
• 2013—Elizabeth Kierepka
• 2014—Johanna Varner
• 2015—Janna Willoughby
• 2016—Laurel Yohe
• 2017—Andrea Dechner-Sierra
• 2018—Erin Siracusa
• 2019—Katheryn Stanchak

2020+

• 2020—Addison Allen
• 2021—Ben Weins

A. Brazier Howell Award

1956-1959

• 1956—Keith Justice
• 1957—Ormond Mitchell
• 1958—Eugene Fleharty
• 1959—John Stephens

1960-1969

• 1960—John Hall
• 1961—Robert Catlett
• 1962—David Rassmussen
• 1963—John Winkelmann
• 1964—Illar Muul
• 1965—Dieter Tzschentke
• 1966—RA Mead
• 1967—Leonard Brand
• 1968—Patricia Berger
• 1969—Theodore Fleming

1970-1979

• 1970—Bill Texera
• 1971—Ernest Christopher
• 1972—Peter Meserve
• 1973—James Joule
• 1974—Robert Rose
• 1975—Alan French
• 1976—Jack Cranford
• 1977—Frederick Jannett
• 1978—David Foltz
• 1979—Joyce Poole

1980-1989

• 1980—Steven Thompson
• 1981—Richard Ostfeld
• 1983—Duke Rogers
• 1984—Priscilla Tucker
• 1985—Kimberlyn Nelson
• 1986—Terry Derting
• 1987—Renee Rusler
• 1988—Paul Leberg
• 1989—Glennis Kaufman

1990-1999

• 1990—Craig Frank
• 1991—David Ribble
• 1993—Martin Main
• 1994—Dawn Kaufman
• 1995—Pamela Austin
• 1996—Scott Nunes
• 1997—Chris Conroy
• 1998—Joseph Jacquot
• 1999—Steve Cote

2000-2009

• 2000—Kathleen LoGuidice
• 2001—Linda Lise
• 2003—John Orrock
• 2004—Karen Nutt
• 2005—Jeffrey Moore
• 2007—Ana Paula Cutrera
• 2008—Gerald Carter
• 2009—Quinn Shurtliff

2010-2019

• 2010—Jonathan Reichard
• 2011—Tereza Jezkova
• 2012—Nathan S. Upham
• 2013—Jason Malaney
• 2014—John Doudna
• 2015—Melissa Pardi
• 2016—Kathryn Everson
• 2017—Talisin T. Hammond
• 2018—Casey Day
• 2019—Dakota Rowsey

2020+

• 2020—Lisa Walsh
• 2021—Carson Hedberg

Elmer C. Birney Award (previously ASM Award)

1952-1959

• 1952—Wilbur Quay
• 1954—James Layne
• 1955—Phillip Youngman
• 1956—Herman Ogren
• 1957—John Rood
• 1958—Patricia DeCoursey
• 1959—William Adams

1960-1969

• 1960—Stephen Kaye
• 1961—Stanley Wecker
• 1962—Edwin Gould
• 1963—Aelita Pinter
• 1964—CC Rust
• 1965—Michael Smith
• 1966—Bill Texera
• 1967—James Brown
• 1968—John McManus
• 1969—Brock Fenton

1970-1979

• 1970—George McKay
• 1971—Ronald Olsen
• 1972—Donald Kaufman
• 1973—William Kilpatrick
• 1974—Charles Garten
• 1975—Michael Schum
• 1976—LorVel Shields
• 1977—Mark Hafner
• 1978—David Krohne
• 1979—Peter August

1980-1989

• 1980—Bruce Patterson
• 1981—Carol Rowsemitt
• 1982—Thomas Griffith
• 1983—Mark Lomolino
• 1984—John Gross
• 1985—Roger Everton
• 1986—Robert Swihart
• 1988—Hector Arita
• 1989—William Lawrence

1990-1999

• 1992—Eileen Lacey
• 1994—Rick Sweitzer
• 1995—Kathryn Gubista
• 1997—David McClellan
• 1998—Susan Lingle
• 1999—Stephen Mech

2000-2009

• 2000—Karen Stone
• 2001—Marjorie Matocq
• 2002—David Onorato
• 2003—Xiaoguang Zheng
• 2004—Kevin Rowe
• 2005—Trina Roberts
• 2007—Jackie Metheny
• 2008—Hayley Lanier
• 2009—Sean Neiswenter

2010-2019

• 2010—Thomas Giarla
• 2011—Christopher W. Habeck
• 2012—Eliecer E. Gutierrez
• 2013—Adam Ford
• 2014—Jennifer Schieltz
• 2015—Rachel Walsh
• 2016—Jeremy Chase Crawford
• 2017—Brett R. Jesmer
• 2018—Jesyka Meléndez-Rosa
• 2019—Brian Tanis

2020+

• 2020—Saeideh Esmaeili
• 2021—Miranda Crowell

Annie M. Alexander Award (Master's Students)

2010-2019

• 2013—Brooks Kohli
• 2015—Miranda Crowell
• 2016—Adriana Casillas
• 2017—Joshua M. Barry
• 2018—Emily M. Beasley
• 2019—Marie Martin

2020+

• 2020—Mariah Schlis-Elias
• 2021—Elizabeth Agpalo

Undergraduate Graduate Student Honoraria

2001-2009

• 2001—Amy Bickham, Erin Jackson, Amy Turmelle
• 2002—Kathryn Connell, Luciana Santos, Christine Trunbull
• 2003—Emily Kaye Heward, Matthew John Michel
• 2004—Ryan Long, Beth Ross, Samantha Carpenter
• 2005—Brandi Coyner, C. Miguel Pinto, Melissa Fowler
• 2006—Maria Marchan, Nathan Upham
• 2007—Vagan Mushegyan, Samuel Skalak, Ali Raza
• 2008—Gabriela Gonzalez Olimon, Katelyn Schumacher
• 2009—Rebecca Kelly, Jennifer McCreight

2010-2019

• 2011—Emily Scobie, Reed Ojala-Barbour
• 2012—Aspen Reese
• 2013—Lauren Dorough, Dakota Rowsey
• 2014—Kimberly Conway, Andy Kulikowski
• 2015—Eric Green, Jonathan Keller
• 2017—Tara R. Preuett
• 2018—Connor Burgin, Sydney Stephens
• 2019—Robert Beers, Maya Juman

2020+

• 2020—Ananth Miller-Murthy, Sandy Slovikosky
• 2021—Victoria Aguilar, Austin Nash

• The 2022 Annual Report of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee
• The 2021 Annual Report of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee
• The 2020 Annual Report of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee
• The 2019 Annual Report of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee
• The 2018 Annual Report of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee
• The 2017 Annual Report of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee
• The 2016 Annual Report of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee
• The 2015 Annual Report of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee
• The 2014 Annual Report of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee
• The 2013 Annual Report of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee

Please note that applications for 2023 Honoraria & Travel Awards are already closed due to special requirements for the IMC13 meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.

The American Society of Mammalogists is committed to supporting students, early career professionals, and others needing travel support through a variety of programs. The relationships among these programs, including information on program aims, eligibility, and links to program webpages, is available here.

Call for Graduate Student Honoraria

Who Can Apply

The competition is open to all graduate student members of the American Society of Mammalogists, regardless of nationality or current institutional affiliation. [To become a member of the Society visit the ASM membership page here.] Applicants must be master's or doctoral students (or have completed their degrees during the previous Fall term) when they apply. Only master’s students are eligible for the Annie M. Alexander Award, while either master's or doctoral students are eligible for the Anna M. Jackson, A. Brazier Howell, and Elmer C. Burney awards. Applicants must not have received a previous Graduate Honorarium from ASM, or a Shadle or ASM Fellowship (past winners of the Alexander Award may apply for other graduate honoraria for research on a different project at a different institution). However, recipients of ASM Grant-in-Aid of Research and other student research grants (Latin American Graduate Student Field Research Award, African Graduate Student Research Fund, James L. Patton Award, Student Science Policy Award) are eligible and encouraged to apply. 

To diversify abstracts and support the maximum number of student attendees, recipients of the Shadle and ASM Fellowships are not eligible for Travel Awards in the same year as their award presentation. Students unsure of their eligibility are encouraged to contact the Chair of Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee well in advance of the application deadline.

Honoraria applications should be based on student research that is completed or nearly so, i.e., not proposed research. Collaborative work with multiple authors may be submitted, so long as the applicant has played the primary role in designing and conducting the research (the reference letter should address this issue). We seek to recognize students who have been primarily responsible for the design and/or conduct of the submitted research project (normally the student’s thesis or dissertation research). Any reference letter that does not clearly address the student's role in the research project and his/her ability to present the work successfully at the Annual Meeting will result in disqualification of the applicant. See detailed instructions for applying for Graduate Student Honoraria.

Members of the committee review and rank applications based on originality, quality, and presentation of the research and the advisor’s letter of support. Proposals with the highest overall ranking will be awarded, with the top-ranked master's application receiving the Alexander Award. Each Graduate Student Honorarium carries a stipend of $2000, which is intended to subsidize attendance at that year’s Annual Meeting.

Recipients

Honoraria recipients will have the distinct honor of presenting their research at the opening Plenary Session of the ASM Annual Meeting. These platform presentations will be 15 min in length (12 min for the oral presentation, 3 min for questions). Regardless of the outcome of the competition, applicants intending to present a paper at the Annual Meeting must submit the usual abstract and pre-registration materials to the local committee before the abstract deadline for the meeting.

Submit your application materials by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on 15 January 2023 on the applications page www.mammalsociety.org/applications. The advisor's letter must be submitted separately from the student's materials.  Packets that do not meet the above requirements or are received after the deadline will not be considered.  Applicants will be notified of the committee’s decision in February. Please also email the committee chair (Dr. Mel Pardi mel.pardi@gmail.com) when you apply.

Undergraduate Student Honoraria

Who Can Apply

The American Society of Mammalogists (ASM), a long-standing society organized to promote the study of mammals, encourages undergraduate students to apply for an Undergraduate Student Honorarium. The competition is open to all undergraduate student members of ASM. ASM has an international membership and encourages international students to join the Society and apply for its grants and awards programs. ASM student members currently enrolled in an undergraduate program, or who graduated in the just-completed fall or winter term, are eligible to apply. A student can receive an ASM Undergraduate Honorarium only once in her/his career, but are eligible for graduate honoraria when they enter a graduate program. Up to two awards of $1500 will be given each year, which are intended to subsidize attendance at the Annual Meeting in June. The committee will review applications and select award recipients on the basis of the originality and quality of research and the student's curriculum vitae. To become a member of the Society visit the ASM membership page at www.mammalsociety.org/membership.

Application Instructions

Applicants should submit a 300-500 word summary of the research project with 1 figure (or 1 table), a curriculum vitae, and a letter of support from their research advisor.  Authors must submit PDF files; no other formats will be accepted. Applications must be submitted electronically to www.mammalsociety.org/applications by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on 15 January. Please also email the committee chair (Dr. Mel Pardi mel.pardi@gmail.com) when you apply. The advisor's letter must be submitted separately from the student's materials. Packets that do not meet the above requirements or are received after the deadline will not be considered. Applicants will be notified of the committee’s decision in February. 

Students receiving awards also must present an oral or poster presentation at the Annual Meeting. Applicants should also submit their abstract and pre-registration material to the local organizing committee before the regular abstract submission deadline for the meeting. For details about the next Annual Meeting, including abstract submission, see the ASM website here.

Travel Awards

Who Can Apply

ASM recognizes the value and importance of participation in the Annual Meeting as a way to become connected to the Society and its members, to forge professional relationships and collaborations, and to take advantage of the Annual Meeting as a mechanism for communicating highest-caliber research results. The Society offers nominal Travel Awards to help offset costs for students and early-career members of ASM to participate in the Annual Meeting. Recipients of ASM Grant-in-Aid of Research and other student research grants (Latin American Graduate Student Field Research Award, African Graduate Student Research Fund, James L. Patton Award, Student Science Policy Award) are encouraged to apply and share their ASM-supported results. Early-career recipients must give an oral presentation at the Annual Meeting, whereas students can present either a poster or a talk. Recipients must be both the primary author and the presenter. Selection is based on the quality and content of the submitted abstract and its potential to be of broad general interest to meeting participants.

To diversify abstracts and support the maximum number of student attendees, recipients of the Shadle and ASM Fellowships and Honoraria are not eligible for Travel Awards in the same year as their award presentation. Students unsure of their eligibility are encouraged to contact the Chair of Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee well in advance of the application deadline.

Care Assistance Awards

Who Can Apply

ASM recognizes that responsibilities for care of dependents can limit members’ ability to travel and attend the annual meeting. This award is intended to provide financial support for active ASM members to cover dependent care costs and allow them to present research, network, and/or attend workshops or symposia. Funds from this award must be used to support care assistance for dependents or the meeting attendee rather than general conference attendance costs, like registration or travel, for the applicant. Examples of approved uses for these funds include childcare or eldercare either at home or at the conference, hiring a temporary caregiver, and travel/host costs associated with bringing your dependent, a caregiver, or a helper to the conference. Recipients of the Care Assistance Award are eligible to receive a Travel Award or Honoraria in the same year.

Questions should be directed to the committee chair Dr. Mel Pardi (mel.pardi@gmail.com).

Please note that applications for 2023 Honoraria & Travel Awards are already closed due to special requirements for the IMC13 meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.

Detailed Instructions for Graduate Student Honoraria

Eligibility

The competition is open to all graduate student members of the American Society of Mammalogists, regardless of nationality or current institutional affiliation. [To become a member of the Society visit the ASM membership page here.]

Applicants must:

• Be master's or doctoral students (or have completed their degrees during the previous Fall term) when they apply. PhD students who have completed MA/MS degrees within the previous 18 months may apply for the Alexander Award using their Master’s research, but are not eligible to receive another graduate honorarium for work on a related project at the same institution.
• Not have received a previous Graduate Honorarium from ASM, or a Shadle or ASM Fellowship. However, recipients of ASM Grant-in-Aid of Research and other student research grants (Latin American Graduate Student Field Research Award, African Graduate Student Research Fund, James L. Patton Award, Student Science Policy Award) are eligible and encouraged to apply.

Students unsure of their eligibility are encouraged to contact the Chair of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee well in advance of the application deadline (mel.pardi@gmail.com)

Research Statement

Applicants should submit a summary of their graduate research not exceeding 1000 words (excluding Literature Cited, figures, or tables) with the following clearly labeled sections:

• Title
• Project Significance/Theoretical Context
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion/Interpretation.
• Literature Cited

Please include key figures/tables (3 items maximum) with concise captions (not to exceed 60 words max/caption) to support your results. The figure/table and caption both must fit on a single page. In-text citation format should follow that of the Journal of Mammalogy. Research currently under review for publication or ‘in press’ may be submitted.  

Applicants should note that the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee is composed of members from across different subdisciplines of mammalogy, and therefore are urged to write for a broad, scientifically literate audience and to avoid excessive jargon or technical terms.  Collaborative work with multiple authors may be submitted, so long as the applicant has played the primary role in designing and conducting the research (the reference letter, see below, must address this issue).

Reference Letter

A letter should be addressed to the committee and be written by an individual familiar with the applicant's research, ideally, the research advisor/mentor or major professor. Beyond comments concerning the student’s general strengths, the letter must address the following:

1. If the student will be prepared to present the research project in the Plenary Session of the upcoming Annual Meeting
2. The student's role in designing and conducting the research, especially in the case of collaborative research. 

We seek to recognize students who have been primarily responsible for the design and/or conduct of the submitted research project (normally the student’s thesis or dissertation research). Any letter that does not clearly address the two points stated above will result in disqualification of the applicant.

Evaluation criteria

Members of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee review and rank applications based on originality, quality, and presentation of the research and the advisor’s letter of support. The four proposals with the highest overall ranking will be awarded, with the highest ranked application from a master's applicant receiving the Alexander Award. Each award carries an Honorarium of $2000, intended to subsidize attendance at the Annual Meeting.

Detailed Instructions for Undergraduate Student Honoraria

Eligibility

The competition is open to all Undergraduate student members of the American Society of Mammalogists, regardless of nationality or current institutional affiliation. [To become a member of the Society visit the ASM membership page here.]

Applicants must:

• Be undergraduate students (or have completed their degrees during the previous Fall term) when they apply.
• Not have received a previous undergraduate Honorarium from ASM. However, recipients of ASM Grant-in-Aid of Research and other student research grants (Latin American Graduate Student Field Research Award, African Graduate Student Research Fund, James L. Patton Award, Student Science Policy Award) are eligible and encouraged to apply. 

Students unsure of their eligibility are encouraged to contact the Chair of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee well in advance of the application deadline (mel.pardi@gmail.com)

Application Instructions

Applicants should submit a 300-500 word summary of the research project with 1 figure (or 1 table) and caption (caption not to exceed 60 words max), a curriculum vitae, and a letter of support from their research advisor. The figure/table and caption both must fit on a single page. In-text citation format should follow that of the Journal of Mammalogy. Research currently under review for publication or ‘in press’ may be submitted. Authors must submit PDF files; no other formats will be accepted. Applications must be submitted electronically to www.mammalsociety.org/applications by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on 15 January. Please also email the committee chair (Dr. Mel Pardi mel.pardi@gmail.com) when you apply. The advisor's letter must be submitted separately from the student's materials. Packets that do not meet the above requirements or are received after the deadline will not be considered. Applicants will be notified of the committee’s decision in February.

Students receiving awards also must present an oral or poster presentation at the Annual Meeting. Applicants should also submit their abstract and pre-registration material to the local organizing committee before the regular abstract submission deadline for the meeting. For details about the next Annual Meeting, including abstract submission, see the ASM website here.

Questions should be directed to the committee chair Dr. Mel Pardi (mel.pardi@gmail.com).

Reference Letter

A letter should be addressed to the committee and be written by an individual familiar with the applicant's research, ideally, the research advisor/mentor or major professor. Beyond comments concerning the student’s general strengths, the letter must address the following:

1. If the student will be prepared to present the research project during the upcoming Annual Meeting
2. The student's role in the research especially in the case of collaborative research. 

Evaluation criteria

Members of the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee review and rank applications based on originality, quality, and presentation of the research and the advisor’s letter of support. The two proposals with the highest overall ranking will be awarded. Each award carries an Honorarium of $1500, intended to subsidize attendance at the Annual Meeting.

Submissions for Graduate and Undergraduate Honoraria

Submit your research statement (and ask your advisor to send his/her letter separately) in PDF format, electronically to www.mammalsociety.org/applications/ by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on 15 January.  Please also email the chair of the committee [Dr. Mel Pardi mel.pardi@gmail.com] at the time that you submit your application. Applications that do not meet the above requirements or are received after the deadline will not be considered. Applicants will be notified of the committee's decision in February.

Questions should be directed to the committee chair Dr. Mel Pardi mel.pardi@gmail.com.

Graduate Student Honoraria recipients will present their research results at the Plenary Session of the ASM Annual Meeting.  These platform presentations will be 15 min in length (12 min for the oral presentation, 3 min for questions). Regardless of the outcome of the competition, applicants should also submit their abstract and pre-registration material to the local organizing committee before the regular abstract submission deadline for the meeting.  For details about the next meeting, including abstract submission, see the ASM website here.

Detailed Instructions for Travel Awards

Travel Awards are meant to help offset costs for students and early-career (within 5 years of their terminal degree) members of ASM to participate in the Annual Meeting. Recipients of ASM Grant-in-Aid of Research and other student research grants (Latin American Graduate Student Field Research Award, African Graduate Student Research Fund, James L. Patton Award, Student Science Policy Award) are encouraged to apply and share their ASM-supported results. Early-career recipients must give an oral presentation at the Annual Meeting, whereas students can present either a poster or a talk. Recipients must be both the primary author and the presenter. 

Evaluation criteria

The committee uses a double-blind review process so students’ and coauthors’ names and institutions are not visible. Selection is based on the quality and content of the submitted abstract, its potential to be of broad general interest to meeting participants, and for following the formatting guidelines for the Abstracts available on the conference website.

Submissions for Travel Awards

Applicants will complete an online form through the submission portal and upload their abstract as a Word doc. Abstracts should follow the formatting requirements described on the conference website, however they should exclude author names and addresses (only include the title and body of the abstract). Contact information will be collected via the form.

Applications for the Travel Awards are accepted through an online portal specific to these awards here.

Complete applications must be submitted before 11:59 PM EST 31 January 2023 to be considered for one of these awards. No late applications will be accepted. Please note that applicants also will need to upload their abstracts to the conference website as a separate step. The number of awards per year will vary depending on available funds and selection of recipients will be done by the Honoraria and Travel Awards Committee.

Detailed Instructions for Care Assistance Awards

This award is intended to provide financial support for active ASM members whose responsibilities for care of dependents, or need for assistance themselves, would limit their ability to attend and present at the Annual Meeting. Receiving this award does not preclude current ASM members from applying to and receiving additional travel support from ASM. Funds from this award must be used to support dependent care rather than general conference attendance costs, like registration or travel, for the applicant. Examples of approved uses for these funds include childcare or eldercare either at home or at the conference, hiring a temporary caregiver, and travel/host costs associated with bringing your dependent, a caregiver, or a helper to the conference.

Applicants will complete an online form through the submission portal specific to this award. Applicants will be asked to upload a Word doc with an overview of their goals for attending the conference and either (or both) an abstract for an oral or poster presentation that will be given at the conference with an abstract following the guidelines available on the conference website or a description of their goals and/or reasons for attending the conference (e.g. networking, to attend a workshop, etc. instead of presenting). For both, applicants should omit including their name or institution on the Word doc.

Applications will be evaluated by a small internal committee and names of applicants will be omitted from the review process.

Applications for the Care Assistance Awards are accepted through an online portal specific to these awards here.