March 2026 – Graduate Student Piper Cole received the prestigious Wormsloe Graduate Fellow Award to support her work investigating floral signaling and pollination in Southern Magnolia. Wormsloe is a historic site in Savannah Georgia that houses the Center for Research and Education at Wormsloe where researchers can study everything from ecology to art, history, and archeology. This past summer Piper found a large forest of native Southern Magnolia on the property (pictured here) and proposed an exciting project that will inform the pollination ecology and evolution of this enigmatic plant. Congratulations Piper!
March 2026 – Graduate Student Jade Stryker received the Science Foundation’s inaugural What IF award for her project investigating multimodal signaling in the cycad-weevil mutualism. She developed and produced a video as part of the application and takes home a significant grant to support her research. You can watch her video here. Congratulations Jade!
March 2026 – The College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences recently covered the work done in the lab in their Field Report newsletter. It’s a lovely article by Emily Cabrera with some fun photos by Undergraduate photojournalism student Caroline Newbern.
March 2026 – Graduate Student Teri Ramey received the University of Georgia Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award from the Center for Teaching and Learning for her work with Dr. Kelly Carruthers on Entomology for Educators (ENTO5730E/7730E) this past fall. Dr. Carruthers and Teri worked to bring this class back after being off the books a few years. She contributed in developing some lecture material as well as regular Teaching Assistant duties. Congratulations Teri!!
December 2025 – Research Scientist Gwen Bode (M.S.) traveled to Brazil to collect floral scent volatiles in collaboration with the André Laboratory at the University of Brasilia. While there Gwen visited the Cerrado, the world’s most biodiverse tropical savanna, and the amazon rainforest to collect volatiles from species in the Annonaceae and Costaceae families.
September 2025 – Graduate student Piper Cole receives the Laerm Academic Support Fund from the Georgia Museum of Natural History for her upcoming field work characterizing pollination signaling evolution in Magnolia. Congratulations Piper!
May 2025 – Graduate student Mohammed Quarshie successfully defends his Masters thesis on temperature and moisture response in Sitophilus zeamais! Congratulations Mohammed!!
April 2025 – Graduate Student Piper Cole receives an Honorable Mention for her Graduate Research Fellowship Proposal to the National Science Foundation on her work investigating the ecology and evolution of Magnolia pollination signaling. Great Job Piper! Congratulations!!
January 2025 – Graduate Student Teri Ramey graduated from Christopher Newport University with her Masters Degree in Environmental Science. Teri was completing the requirements for this degree while starting her PhD at UGA! Congratulations Teri!!!
January 2025 – Salzman Lab graduate students Piper Cole (left) and Jade Stryker (right) attend the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology conference in Atlanta Georgia for a workshop on Computer vision and deep learning for pollinator behavior.
November 2024 – Shayla and Arthur Domingos de Melo host a symposium on plant chemical signals at the 74th National Botanical Congress in Brasília Brazil and Salzman Lab phytochemist Gwen Bode is an invited speaker. Left-to-right: Arthur, Gwen, Congress Vice President Thiago André, and Shayla.
November 2024 – Salzman Lab graduate student Piper Cole presents her research at the 74th Nation Botanical Congress in Brasília Brazil.
July 2024 – Shayla and Juan Carlos Villarreal Aguilar (Laval University) host a symposium on Cycad biology at the International Botanical Congress in Madrid Spain.
August 2024 – Shayla is an invited speaker for a sympoisum on phytophagous beetles at the International Congress of Entomology in Kyoto Japan. Left-to-Right: Brian Farrell (Harvard University), Shayla, Bruno de Medeiros (Field Musuem), and Sangil Kim (Seoul National University).
May 2024 – Be an Entomologist for a Day outreach event for 1st-3rd graders at Athens Montessori School. Left-to-right: Piper, Mohammed, Teri, Gregory.
April 2024 – Salzman Lab graduate students Teri Ramey and Mohammed Quarshie present at the Georgia Entomological Society meeting on Jekyll Island. Left-to-right: Shayla, Mohammed, Teri, and Piper.
