A University of Iowa graduate student has won a research award from the American Genetic Association.

Anna Ward, a fourth-year graduate student in the Department of Biology, will receive funding to reconstruct the evolutionary history of a diverse group of wasps that cause galls (fleshy, tumor-like growths) on oak trees in North America. The diversity of these wasps has been a focus of study for more than 100 years (including by Alfred Kinsey), but no one has conducted a high-resolution analysis of the wasps’ evolutionary history.

The Ecological, Evolutionary, and Conservation Genomics research awards go to graduate and post-doctoral researchers who are at a critical point in their research, where additional funds would allow them to conclude their research project and prepare it for publication.

Ward conducts research under the guidance of Andrew Forbes, associate professor in the Department of Biology.