Three winners have been selected in the 2022 Faces of Biology Photo Contest, sponsored by the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB).
“Photography is an effective tool to help people understand how scientific research is done,” said Scott Glisson, CEO of AIBS. “This contest provides a forum for expression, inspiration, and technical skill.”
The competition showcases biological research in its many forms and settings. The photos are used to help the public and policymakers better understand the value of biological research and education, as well as relate to research and researchers on a more personal level.
First Place – Brandon Güell
Brandon Güell won first place with this photograph showing recent Boston University graduate Elena Gomez amidst thousands of reproducing gliding treefrogs, Agalychnis spurrelli, at a remote pond on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula. Elena helped record and describe the natural history of explosive breeding in gliding treefrogs in 2021, where up to tens of thousands of individuals aggregate for a few hours to breed on leaves that overhang a large pond.
Second Place – Kristen Grace
Kristen Grace of the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, Gainesville, captured this photograph of Dr. Coleman Sheehy, collections manager of herpetology at the museum, taking a measurement of a diamondback terrapin found off the Gulf Coast of Florida. Dr. Sheehy is seen collecting data on these terrapins during an undergraduate field class he designed, called Island Biology, to give undergraduate biology students a chance to learn fieldwork first hand.
Third Place – Conner Philson
Third place went to this photograph of Conner Philson, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles, captured by Dave Basden. Conner is holding a baby marmot trapped and safely released unharmed as part of a 61-year-long study into their population dynamics, life history and behavior, and response to climate change. Started in 1962, the yellow-bellied marmot project at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado has trained biology students and scientists for decades as one of the longest running studies of free-living mammals in the world.
A forthcoming issue of the journal BioScience will feature the first-place photograph on the cover and the second- and third-place photos in an article. All of the winners receive a one-year subscription to BioScience. Brandon Güell will also receive $250.