The Student and Early Professionals Committee is appointed by the WOS President to represent the interests of students and early professionals and plan events, resources, and other opportunities for professional development for WOS student and early professional members.
“Students” includes everyone from K-12 education through graduate school. “Early Professionals” is anyone within five years of their most recent degree of any type.
Anyone who is a member of the WOS is welcome to participate in the committee, although the membership is often largely or exclusively students and early professionals and the committee is student and early professional led.
We plan events for the annual WOS conferences, including events focused on professional development (Career Panels) and on creating space for community (LGBTQIA+ social). We have also recently spearheaded the creation of a new award honoring early professionals in non-research careers, and we’re working on creating training videos about bird handling and banding skills in collaboration with the North American Banding Council. We are also responsible for the Guide to Graduate Studies, which provides a resource for prospective graduate students to find potential advisors for master’s and PhD students in ornithological research.
If you’d like to join our committee, we certainly welcome you. Please reach out to Chair Nicholas Russo to get an invitation to our next monthly Zoom meeting. Being a part of the committee can mean varying levels of involvement depending on your time and interest; some members help plan events for conferences, which tends to be mostly a time commitment near the conferences, while others are involved in efforts that stretch out across the calendar year. Interested WOS members often join us for a meeting or two to get a feel for what we are doing before they express interest in helping out with a particular task.
Current Membership
Nick Russo (Co-chair)
Sarah Deckel (Co-chair)
Breanna Bennet
Kristen Covino
Jonah Dominguez
Stephanie Egger
Auriel Fournier
Amanda Kemp
Tharindu Krishan Kalukapuge
Katie Leonard
Juita Martinez
Liza Morse
Patrick Newcombe
Jerald Reb
Jordan Rutter
Alexander Sidare
Madison Sutton
Liana Van Zen
Resources for Students & Early Professionals
Jed Burtt Undergraduate Mentoring Grants
Early Professional Avian Conservation and Community Impact Award
Wilson Ornithological Society 