Biology PhD student Emerson Conrad-Rooney of the Templer Lab received the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2025 Student E-Poster Competition in the Environment and Ecology award. The AAAS showcases undergraduate and graduate students’ innovative research and communication skills and highlights the importance of making science accessible and engaging for all.
Emerson attended the AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston this February. There, they won first place in the AAAS 2025 Student E-Poster Competition in the Environment and Ecology category. Their poster was titled, “Effects of Growing Season Warming and Winter Freeze/Thaw Cycles on Tree Growth.”
They shared results from the Templer Lab’s decade-long Climate Change Across Seasons Experiment (CCASE) at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire, an experiment that quantifies the combined effects of growing season warming and a smaller winter snowpack on temperate forest ecosystem processes. Emerson measured tree growth using tree cores and found that after a decade of treatments, growing season warming increases annual rates of tree growth for red maple (the most common species); however, winter soil freeze/thaw cycles counteract this effect.
Congratulations, Emerson!