Kayla Wallace, a senior majoring in biology with a minor in anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has won the 2022 Spector Prize.
Each year, the Department of Biology awards a prize to a graduating senior in memory of Marion Smith Spector, a 1938 graduate who studied zoology under the late Viktor Hamburger. The Spector Prize, first awarded in 1974, recognizes academic excellence and outstanding undergraduate achievement in research. Students are nominated by their research mentors for outstanding research that has made substantial contributions to a field.
Wallace was nominated by her faculty mentor Joan Strassmann, the Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences. Wallace's thesis, titled "Effects of freshwater acidification and parasitism upon rusty crayfish consumption behaviors," won praise for the experiments' design, the technical excellence in carrying them out and for incisive interpretation of the results.
"Throughout my entire research project, I've pushed myself and have grown tremendously as a scientist, leaning into my curiosities, and developing the technical and critical thinking skills to explore them in a meaningful way," Wallace said.
