Budischak Wins Prestigious Best Student Paper Award

Sarah Budischak, 2007 M.S. in fisheries and wildlife sciences, won the 2008 Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry's Best Student Paper Award. This prestigious award is given annually by the society to one of its student members who was the lead author of a paper published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry that reported on non-postdoctoral research.

Budischak's paper, entitled “Effects of malathion on embryonic development and latent susceptibility to trematode parasites in ranid tadpoles,” provides an in-depth look into how disease and pollution interact and is considered to be a critical contribution to the study of conservation of amphibians. Those who reviewed the paper cited it as an innovative and excellent study that should have many applications for environmental quality assessments.

“Sarah’s M.S. research here was so important and novel because it demonstrated how brief exposure to a common pesticide during early development can have lasting effects later in life. She clearly showed that this brief disruptive event made amphibians more susceptible to parasite infection weeks later. Her findings force us to reconsider the subtle effects of pesticides on animal health,” commented her advisor, associate professor William Hopkins.

Budischak is currently working towards her Ph.D. in the Ecology of Infectious Diseases Program at the University of Montana, where her research focuses on the ecology of bovine tuberculosis in African buffalo at Kruger National Park, South Africa’s largest game reserve.

5/12/09