About 25 SNR faculty and students attended the Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference in early December in Iowa. College students, graduate students and faculty presented their work in poster sessions.
"It was an amazing experience to network with possible future employers, faculty members and colleagues," said Jeremy Grauf, a senior who presented a poster on his research. Grauf, who plans to go to graduate school, said, "Just talking to graduate students who were there was probably the best thing for me, hearing about different programs, different ways they applied, how they got funding, and different research."
His poster, "Movement of Big River Fish in the Missouri and Platte Rivers," was the culmination of a UCARE project supervised by Mark Pegg. "I had to work hard to do my research and make my poster but I learned a lot about the scientific process and academic work," Grauf said. At the opportunity presented by the conference, "All of my hard work was seen."
Josiah Dallmann also presented a poster, "Using iButtons to Determine Nest Absences of Greater Prairie-Chickens." (iButtons are a type of temperature-logging device.)
"The conference gave me the unique opportunity to encounter countless fellow researchers and to discover some of the newest findings in fisheries and wildlife management," Dallmann said.
SNR and the NU Foundation sponsored a UNL Alumni and Friends reception for former students and colleagues at the conference, and more than 50 people attended.
The Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference is a regional gathering for fisheries and wildlife biologists at state and federal agencies and for university faculty and students. Its location rotates. It was in Omaha in 2006 and it will be back in Nebraska in 2016.