Sarah Fitzpatrick, Michigan State University assistant professor of integrative biology, has been recognized with the Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigators Award from the American Society of Naturalists.
The Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigators Award recognizes scientists who have conferred their doctorates within the last three years or are in their final year of graduate school. Fitzpatrick was one of four recipients receiving the award this year.
“I am extremely honored to receive this award,” Fitzpatrick said. “I'm excited for the opportunity to present my research as part of the Young Investigator Symposium at the joint American Society of Naturalists/Society for the Study of Evolution meeting this year. This is the first year that the award has gone to all women, and I feel privileged to be a part of this group."
Fitzpatrick joined the Department of Integrative Biology in the College of Natural Science in January 2017, and is broadly interested in evolution, ecology and conservation of natural populations. Research in her lab combines genomic tools, mark-recapture methods and experiments to study how interactions between gene flow, drift and selection affect population dynamics and diversity patterns. She is also a faculty member at the Kellogg Biological Station.
“We are so pleased and proud to see Sarah get this well-deserved recognition,” said Tom Getty, chair of Integrative Biology. “The quality of her research and the way it integrates natural history, ecology, evolution and sophisticated genomics to address important problems is emblematic of the mission of the Department of Integrative Biology.”