The William A. Calder III Memorial Scholarship was established in 2002 in honor of EEB faculty member Bill Calder.
The Calder Memorial Scholarship supports graduate students from Mexico with strong commitments to conservation and the protection of natural resources that intend to return to Mexico to further educate others in these principles. During his life, Bill Calder reached across the border to foster scientific collaborations with his colleagues in Mexico. He especially supported opportunities for women and people of color in academic biology, and he established several scholarships to broaden academic opportunities and inspire students who might not otherwise have pursued scientific study.
2022 Recipients
Sarah Britton
I am a PhD candidate in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. My research broadly concerns understanding phenotypic plasticity and its adaptive role. Adaptive phenotypic plasticity is expected to evolve when different phenotypes or trait values are optimal in different environments. Plasticity is a ubiquitous and important phenomenon and understanding the evolution of adaptive plasticity is fundamental to our understanding of how organisms interact with their environments. In particular I am interested in the costs and benefits associated with melanin pigmentation in animals and how this might explain plasticity in coloration. I use Hyles lineata, the white-lined Sphinx moth, as a study system to address questions about the thermal benefits of melanin, how diet constrains pigment production, and how populations differ in melanin plasticity.
The Calder Memorial Scholarship will fund my summer research goals and will substantially aid in advancing my dissertation. Specifically, I am conducting experiments to test the thermal role that melanin pigmentation plasticity plays in H. lineata larvae. Furthermore, I am mentoring an undergraduate project on the role of melanin in desiccation prevention in this species. I am honored to receive this scholarship which will greatly facilitate not only my own research progress but also contribute to my role as an undergraduate mentor.
Katie Chenard
The central goal of my research is to understand the evolutionary origins of personality variation. Through my work I hope to provide new insight into the mechanisms by which stress and developmental constraints impact both brain growth and adult behavior. I have combined manipulation of stressors during early life with behavioral observations, hormone analyses, and structural MRI, to answer these questions from an integrative perspective. A better understanding of how stress impacts the development of these traits is crucial for basic understanding as well as conservation, as there are more challenges faced by wild populations and species than ever before, both in Arizona and across the world. I am very grateful to receive the William A. Calder Memorial Scholarship for this summer, as it will allow me to focus on my final work in preparation for completing my dissertation, as well as allowing me the opportunity to attend a conference where I will be speaking on my work.
Michiel Pillet
I investigate the impacts of climate change on cacti, which play an integral role in the natural communities of the American Southwest, as well as Mexico. My recent projections indicate that cacti, perhaps surprisingly, will do poorly under climate change. Urgent conservation intervention is needed involving stakeholders from all parts of society. The Calder Memorial Scholarship will allow me to dramatically expand species coverage of my forecasts, by fostering data exchange with researchers outside the United States. This project is in collaboration with the IUCN Species Survival Commission Cactus and Succulent Plants Specialist Group, and will inform IUCN Red List conservation assessments. These assessments are instrumental in developing regional conservation plans. I am dedicated to outreach, and results will be presented to the public through organizations such as the Tucson Cactus & Succulent Society.
Marianela Velilla
I am a PhD Candidate at the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona. I was born and raised in Paraguay, and I hold a BS in Biology, and a MS in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida. I have been working in conservation in Paraguay for almost two decades, particularly focused on carnivore ecology and conservation. I am an Associate Researcher and Co-PI of the Jaguar program at Guyra Paraguay, one of Paraguay leading NGO´s for biodiversity conservation. In 2018 my family and I moved to Tucson to start the PhD program. My working experience has shown me the importance of including the human dimensions of conservation, especially when working with carnivores. Hence, my dissertation research is focused on a very pressing issue for the jaguar, jaguar-rancher conflict. In Paraguay, jaguars, the largest cat in the Americas, face are 50% chance of being killed because of jaguar-human conflicts. Consequently, my dissertation is intended to engage the main stakeholders in finding potential solutions to mitigate this conflict and enhance coexistence between this large cat and the ranching community in the Chaco region of Paraguay.
My goal as a professional is to contribute to the long-term conservation of this species and its habitat in the Chaco region (one of the world´s deforestation hotspots), and the social science skills I have acquired at the University of Arizona will be very important in achieving this. However, the path is not always easy, as research takes time, and because of the delays caused by the pandemic, I still have one more year finishing my degree, and so, I needed additional financial support, which is why I applied to this prestigious scholarship.
Thus, to receive the 2022 Calder Memorial Scholarship is not only a great honor but is also a great aid as it will provide me with important financial support to focus on my dissertation research. As a Latin-American mother, having an opportunity to be in a PhD program and potentially impact conservation in my country, I really appreciate scholarships like the Calder Memorial that provides financial support to international students who are usually underrepresented. Pursuing a Doctorate degree has been quite challenging, and awards like this will lessen the financial burden, and will provide me with the great opportunity of carrying my research in something I am deeply passionate about, and for that I am extremely grateful to be William A. Calder III Memorial Scholarship!
Yichao Zeng
I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. My research is focused on evolutionary ecology, particularly the intersection of species interactions and macroevolution (i.e., evolution in which the degree of divergence is above the species level, for example, when one ancestral species evolves into two). Drawing inspiration from the natural history of various groups of organisms, I (i) use meta-analytic approaches to characterize large-scale macroevolutionary patterns in relation to antagonistic, mutualistic, commensalisitic, and competitive interactions and (ii) use modeling approaches to establish mechanistic links between microevolutionary processes (i.e., as opposed to macroevolution, evolutionary changes within a species) and the macroevolutionary diversification of species interaction networks. These lines of research will help us better understand the origin and organization of the amazing diversity of biological systems we see today. The Calder Memorial Scholarship will help me fully concentrate on my research during this summer. It will also support my intended trip to the 2022 Congress of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology, to be held in Prague, where I will be presenting results from my research.