BYU students top Entomological Society of America awards - BYU News Skip to main content
Intellect

BYU students top Entomological Society of America awards

If recruiting college students for graduate studies were like the National Football League draft, Brigham Young University science student James Robertson would be the number one pick in the first round.

Graduate schools from Cornell to Berkeley clamored to enroll him as well as three other BYU students after they won four of only eight awards given by the Entomological Society of America at its research competition in November.

The annual competition typically attracts advanced doctoral candidates and even post-doctoral researchers to present their work. Michael Whiting, professor of integrative biology at BYU, took nine of the more advanced members of his lab group, four of them undergraduates, to present research at ESA.

Undergraduate James Robertson won second place in one section of the oral competition, and graduate students Matthew Terry and Heath Ogden won first and second places respectively in the other section. Joshua Jones, another undergraduate, won the student poster competition.

"I'm proud of James in that he beat out eight Ph.D. students for this award," says Whiting. "He did a stellar job presenting undergraduate research which was better than most doctoral dissertations."

Two other undergraduates, Seth Bybee and Sean Taylor, have been contacted by specialists to see if they would be willing to be co-principal investigators on a National Science Foundation grant based on data presented at the competition. This presents a problem because undergraduate students aren't allowed to be principal investigators, but it's a problem Whiting likes to see.

Overall, BYU tied for second place at the competition for the total number of student awards across all sections of ESA, which is a particularly monumental accomplishment considering the powerhouse schools Brigham Young beat out.

"BYU has gained the reputation of being the place to recruit undergraduates in insect evolution and systematics, and the place for graduate studies in insect genomics," says Whiting.

Writer: Craig Kartchner

Related Articles

data-content-type="article"

Student inventors help BYU rank as a top U.S. university for newly-issued patents

May 12, 2025
Brigham Young University was just ranked as one of the Top 100 universities in the nation for most issued patents. But the new ranking from the National Academy of Inventors isn’t the story for BYU; it’s who holds the patents.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= promoTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

BYU research: Your beliefs about money may reveal clues about your relationship

May 07, 2025
Everyone holds their own beliefs about money – what it’s for, how much we need and how to use it. But a new study from researchers at BYU says personal beliefs about money also shape the health of your relationship.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= promoTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

BYU business professors find ‘margins of error’ in workplace correlate with unethical behavior outside workplace

April 29, 2025
Tolerance standards may lead to better outcomes in the workplace, but researchers from the BYU Marriott School of Business recently published a study in the Journal of Business Ethics showing a paradoxical effect in other ethical domains.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= promoTextAlignment=
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection=false overrideCardHideByline=false overrideCardHideDescription=false overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText=