We are pleased to announce the GSA Poster Award winners from the 59th Annual Drosophila Research Conference! Undergraduate and graduate student members of the GSA were eligible for the awards, and a hard-working team of postdocs volunteered their time as judges. Congratulations to all!


Undergraduate Students


1st Place: Elizabeth Hemenway

Institution: University of Missouri-Kansas City

Poster Title: The Surprising composition of a synaptonemal polycomplex

Authors: Elizabeth Hemenway, Stacie Hughes, R. Scott Hawley


2nd Place: Emily Rivard

Institution: College of the Holy Cross

Poster Title: De novo evolved genes have essential roles in male Drosophila reproduction

Authors: Emily Rivard, E. Scott, J. Schmitz, K. Kelleher, E. Bornberg-Bauer, Geoffrey Findlay


3rd Place: Leah Anderson

Institution: The Ohio State University

Poster Title: Determining binding specificities of cell adhesion molecules from Drosophila and other related Dipterans

Authors: Leah Anderson and Mark Seeger


Graduate Students


1st Place: Erez Cohen

Institution: Duke University Medical School

Poster Title: A switch from compensatory proliferation to compensatory hypertrophy in the injured Drosophila hindgut

Authors: Erez Cohen, S. Allen, Don Fox


2nd Place: Ankita Sarkar

Institution: University of Dayton

Poster Title: Wingless, a mediator of crosstalk between Amyloid-beta 42 expressing and wild-type neurons in Alzheimer’s disease

Authors: Ankita Sarkar, J. Kofler, M. Kango-Singh, Amit Singh


3rd Place: Jackie Bubnell

Institution: Cornell University

Poster Title: Expanding functional horizons or evolutionary combat? Evaluating drivers of the rapid evolution of bag of marbles in Drosophila.

Authors: Jackie Bubnell and Chip Aquadro