UC Davis Grad Student Wins a Top Prize for Her Research Poster Presentation on Malaria Mosquitoes

By Kathy Garvey

Stephanie Kurniawan, a UC Davis graduate student in entomology, won second place for her research poster presentation in the Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology (MUVE) section on Ticks and Mosquitoes at the recent meeting of the Entomological Society of America in Minneapolis.

Her poster, “Estimating Age Structure of Wild Anopheles Populations Using the Captive Cohort Method,” won her a $50 check and certificate.

Kurniawan is seeking her master’s degree in entomology. She is advised by two major professors, Associate Dean Edwin Lewis of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and molecular biologist Shirley Luckhart, professor, UC Davis Department of Microbiology and Immunology, UC Davis School of Medicine. Luckhart is a graduate student advisor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology and also co-directs the Center for Vectorborne Diseases.

Another advisor is distinguished professor James R. Carey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who serves on her thesis committee.

Also working with Kurniawan on the poster project was staff research associate Kong Cheung of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.

Kurniawan recently won a 2015 William Hazeltime Memorial Research Fellowship Award to support her research. Of her work, she says: “I am adapting methods for estimating age structure of Anopheles mosquito populations using the captive cohort method developed by Dr. James Carey. It is a potentially inexpensive and practical alternative for real-time surveillance of mosquito populations. I currently am testing this method on local populations of Anopheles freeborni from Sutter and Butte County rice fields.”

Kurniawan became interested in medical entomology in middle school after contracting dengue on a trip to Indonesia to visit relatives. “No one in America knew about this disease, not even my pediatrician,” she recalled. “This made me interested in vector-borne diseases and mosquitoes.”

A lifelong resident of California and an alumnus of UC Davis, Kurniawan received her bachelor’s degree in animal biology with a minor in medical and veterinary entomology.