Department Names Dr. David Giron as 2010 Adkisson Distinguished Seminar Speaker Award
David Giron, center, receiving the Dr. Perry Adkisson Distinguished Seminar Speaker Award from Department Head Dr. David Ragsdale, left, and EGSO vice president Marion Le Gall, right.The Department of Entomology named Dr. David Giron as the newest recipient of the Dr. Perry Adkisson Distinguished Seminar Speaker Award for 2010.
Giron received the award during a special seminar during the Department's Fall Seminar Series on Thursday, October 7.
Giron is a Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, or, CNRS researcher at the Institut du Recherche sur la Biologie de l’Insecte in Tours, France. The CNRS is a government-funded research organization that is under the authority of the Ministry of Research in France.
Giron’s research addresses ecophysiology and behavior of insects, with an emphasis on testing nutritional hypothesis and investigating how insects can manipulate plant physiology to their own benefit. His work has been featured in several prestigious journals, including Nature,
Biology Letters, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Ecology, Functional Ecology and the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
Entomology Graduate Student Organization vice president Marion Le Gall said the group selected Giron because of his outstanding career and his excellence in research, including the Haldane Prize by the British Ecological Society and the best study by the Francophone Society of Entomology.
In 2005, Giron was nominated the most promising young scientist and received the Medal of Honor from the University of Tours. Dr. Giron and his colleagues have published their work in highly prestigious journals including Nature, Ecology, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Ecology Letters, and Functional Ecology.
Given every fall, the Perry Adkisson Distinguished Seminar Speaker Award recognizes outstanding researchers in the field of entomology and gives graduate students and the community the opportunity to hear the latest research from leading scientists.
The award is named for Dr. Perry Adkisson, former head of the Department and of the Texas A&M University Chancellor. During his career, Adkisson was an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the first ever recipient of all three of the world’s major prizes in agriculture, the Alexander von Humboldt Award, the Wolf Prize, and the World Food Prize. Along with Dr. Ray Smith, he developed what is now known as IPM or Integrated Pest Management.
For more information about the award, visit the Perry Adkisson Distinguished Seminar Speaker Award page on the Entomology Graduate Student Organization's website at http://egso.tamu.edu/adkissonaward/index.cfm