Winners of the GSA GBGM Division Student Presentation Awards

Dear Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division Members,

It is our pleasure to announce the winners of the GSA 2020 student presentation awards. We were all so impressed with the quality of presentations by our student members, especially given that for many of us, this was our first time attending and presenting at a virtual conference.

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to our members who judged this year's competition. Without your feedback and support, this endeavor would not be possible. There were many interesting talks and posters at this year's GSA Meeting, so thank you to everyone who participated.

To all of our students, congratulations on presenting at GSA this year. All of the excellent entries from you all truly made choosing winners difficult, but here are the students who will receive an award this year:

Best oral presentation winners:

• Gwen Antell - "Thermal Niches of Planktonic Foraminifera are Static Throughout Glacial-Interglacial Climate Change"
• Jack Shaw - "Methodological Advances in Inferring Ancient Food Webs"

Best poster presentation winners:

• Yu Kai Tan - "Freshwater Mussels in North America: Museum Collections and Pre-Industrial Biogeography"
• Amelia Lindsay Kaufman - "Two Novel Biomineralized Tubular Fossils from the Terminal Ediacaran, Central Iran"

Honorable mentions:

• Erica Scarpitti (oral presentation) - "Association Between Tympanic Bulla Morphology and Locomotion in Rodents: Application to the Fossil Record"
• Katie Maloney (oral presentation) - "Possible Multicellular Green Algae in Early Tonian Marine Environments"
• Tian Gan (poster presentation) - "Paleo-Speleothems as Evidence for Widespread Karstification in the Aftermath of the Marinoan Deglaciation (635 Ma) in South China"

As with previous years, we will be handing out prizes to our award winners at GBGM awards luncheon next year at GSA 2021.

We'd like to thank all of the students who contacted us and put their names forward for consideration. It was a real privilege to see and hear about the work you've been doing, and we encourage you to enter again next year. Recognizing the excellent work of our members is the most important aspect of the GBGM division, so please stay in touch. It is wonderful to see the faces of the student population of GSA GBGM and there is a bright future ahead for this group!

Thank you,
Alison Cribb and the GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division