Biology graduate student, Tommy Pettit, won the Vernon Bailey Award this spring for an outstanding poster presentation on classical mammalogy. The award, given by the Texas Society of Mammalogists, came as a surprise. "I didn't expect to win anything, especially given the interesting topics and excellent methods presented by other people," he says, "I only hoped to be able to get some experience presenting my research and to see how other scientists received it."

The Texas Society of Mammalogists hosts an annual conference for graduate and undergraduate research, and many developing scientists find the environment to be less intimidating than larger national meetings. "I knew that such a conference would be a great place to share my initial findings and get some feedback on how other scientists viewed my work," Tommy says.

As a fourth-year doctoral student researches bat activity in forest edges and believes that the greatest advantage about the graduate program in biology at Baylor is the freedom to choose topics for the research that he is interested in. "I found topics of interest to me and then refined them to work within the financial and logistical limitations of the department," Tommy says. "It has provided an avenue for me to work on interesting and diverse projects."

The Mesa, AZ native credits his mentor as being instrumental in guiding his research interests in a way that he feels allows him to be successful, but also sustains his interest. "I came to Baylor to work with Dr. Kenneth Wilkins because he has done so many different projects with bats," he says. "He has allowed me access to all the resources of his lab, and has helped me to improve my writing skills for efficiently communicating the objectives and results of my research."

He hopes that his research will help describe bat activity patterns in forest edge habitats, opening the concept of forest canopy edges to future ecology research. "Additionally, my research provides bat biology with a new method for quantitatively measuring forest structure – one of the ways scientists use to predict bat forest activity," he says.

Tommy's end goal is to teach biology on the collegiate level, a goal he set while studying for his undergraduate degree at Arizona State University. "I knew I needed to have a graduate degree to reach my ultimate goal of becoming a university professor," he says. "Baylor offered me the opportunity to learn more about teaching and research while working with a professor already established in the field."