Last Sunday, August 12 the ALE LAB graduated its first student!! Chelsea Smith received her M.S. in Entomology at the Ohio State University Summer Commencement. Chelsea did an amazing job in all aspects of her M.S. program. Her research focused on the decline of the native Convergent Lady Beetle. Chelsea examined whether exotic lady beetles were contributing to this decline by consuming native lady beetle eggs. She found that native lady beetles do incur significant egg predation in the field, but surprisingly this was not due to feeding by exotic lady beetles. Instead, a diversity of predators including harvestmen, slugs, and grasshoppers fed on the eggs of the native lady beetle. Chelsea has presented her work at multiple state and national meetings. At the 2011 Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting she was awarded runner up in the Student Competition for the Presidents Prize for her talk titled "Evidence refuting the interference competition hypothesis for native lady beetle decline".
Chelsea has also contributed significantly to undergraduate teaching here at OSU. She worked as a teaching assistant for the Center for Life Sciences where she taught Biology 101 for three quarters. She has also advised undergraduate students who have successfully completed research projects in the lab. She has also been very active in Extension, developing and presenting at multiple meetings and field days throughout her graduate career.
Chelsea has accepted a position as our Laboratory Technician so you will continue to see her blog posts in the future! Congrats Chelsea, you should be very proud of all you have accomplished!!
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