St. Olaf student receives Charles H. Turner Award, presents at international conference
St. Olaf College student Laura Camila Rubiano Monguí ’24 received the Charles H. Turner Award from the Animal Behavior Society and presented her research at the society’s annual conference.
Her presentation highlighted the research she conducted as part of Associate Professor of Biology Norman Lee’s Neural Systems and Behavior Lab, which focused on how the eardrum size of Ormia ochracea, a parasitoid fly, affects its ability to locate sound.
Founded in 2002, the Charles Turner award works to increase diversity in the sciences and is named for Charles Turner, who was one of the first African American researchers in animal behavior. The Turner Award provides funding for undergraduate students to present their research at the annual international conference of the Animal Behavior Society and to attend workshops, networking events, and to hear about current research in the field.
Ormia ochracea depends on its ability to locate crickets, its host, by their song. Monguí hoped to learn about whether the eardrum size of the fly affects their ability to locate these sound sources.
“I had to learn how to do dissections and measure their eardrums, which was a very challenging task that kept me in a constant learning environment,” Monguí says.
Monguí presented this research at the 2023 Animal Behavior Society conference in Portland, Oregon.
“It was a great opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and make connections that I’ve tried to nurture in the past year,” says Monguí. “Seeing so many women of color doing science gave me support and confidence in getting my Ph.D. … and it was such a privilege to learn from experts.”
Monguí hopes to continue getting experience with field work and ecological research throughout the next year. After that, she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in behavioral ecology and use her research abilities to support conservation.
Monguí also majored in studio art, and recently had an exposition in the Flaten Art Museum exploring perceptions of Colombian women in the United States. She has also worked as a St. Olaf Natural Lands technician and student naturalist, and served as the environmental senator in the Student Government Association.
About Dr. Charles Turner
Charles H. Turner was the first African American to receive a graduate degree from the University of Cincinnati and likely the first to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1907. Prior to obtaining his Ph.D., he published more than 30 research articles, and was the first African American to publish in Science, the prestigious journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Despite this productivity, Turner faced racism and was unable to maintain a faculty position at a research institution. He was eventually appointed as a high school teacher at Sumner High School in St. Louis. Even in this position, which lacked the laboratory facilities and other resources he would have had access to at a research institution, Turner continued to make groundbreaking discoveries that went against prevailing ideas of the time. His work demonstrated that animals were capable of complex cognition and not just trial-by-error learning. He showed that bees were able to use visual and olfactory cues to find and learn of nectar sources. He was also the first to discover the ability of some insects to discriminate between sound frequencies (pitch).
By naming an award after him, the Animal Behavior Society Diversity Committee emphasizes its goal to increase the diversity of its membership by encouraging researchers of all ages, levels, and ethnic groups to participate in its annual meetings.