Annually, the PRSSS offers 3 awards for students: Soil Science Student Awards, Poster Competition Awards, and the Warkentin Prize. Please see the information below for each of the awards:
The PRSSS in partnership with the Y.P. Heung Foundation awards a graduate student and an undergraduate student on the merits of:
- Academic achievement
- Research proposal (graduate students only)
- Leadership and community service
- Communication skills
- Letters of recommendation
The Les Lavkulich Graduate Student Award in Soil Science. One award of $5000. Please follow the application guidelines HERE.
The Art Bomke Undergraduate Student Award in Soil Science. One award of $3000. Please follow the application guidelines HERE.
Applications for the 2023 Awards are open.
2022 Winners:
2022 Winners:
Art Bomke Student Award: Liam Easton, BSc Graduate at TRU
Liam recently completed a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops. He is happiest in the forest and a lover of all forest creatures, except mosquitoes. As an ongoing undergraduate project, he has been investigating the characteristics that enable certain pine trees to survive bark beetle outbreaks, and spent the summer gathering data in the beautiful Clearwater Valley. He is heading to McGill University for graduate studies in September.
Les Lavkulich Student Award: Patrick Pow - PhD Candidate at UBC
Patrick Pow is a PhD student with the Biometeorology and Soil Physics group at the University of British Columbia. He received his BSc from the University of Waterloo, during which he spent two summers maintaining remote eddy-covariance and climate stations in the northern boreal. He later completed an MSc at UBC studying the greenhouse gas (GHG) balance of a blueberry field on Westham Island. He now continues his studies as a PhD student measuring the net GHG balance, including carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, as well as non-gaseous inputs and outputs of carbon and nitrogen in an intensively managed forage field in Agassiz, BC.
2021
- Paula Porto - MSc student at UBC
- Helga Holler-Busch - Bachelor's student at the UNBC
2019
- Patricia Hanuszak - MSc student at the University of British Columbia
- Hannah Friesen - Undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia
2018
- Carson Li - MSc student at the University of British Columbia
- Patricia Hanuszak - Undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia
Annually, we provide students with the opportunity to showcase their ideas and projects related to soil science at our Spring Workshop and AGM.
To present a poster at our upcoming Spring Workshop and AGM please register HERE.
Past Recipients
2019
Patricia Hanuszak (UBC) - "Effects of a 4-Year Grassland Set-aside on Soil Aggregate Stability"
Marieta Marin-Bruzos (UBC) - "Chitinases gene abundance in cherry orchards under different land management"
Vaselios Kokkoris (UBCO) - "Are fungal inoculants effective in the field?"
2018
1st Prize: Nicolette Lax (UBC) - Effect of low tunnels and plant biomass and fruit yield of summer squash
2nd Prize: Marieta Marin-Bruzos (UBC) - Potential of cherry rhizosphere Actinomycetes as biocontrol agents against plant-parasitic nematodes
3rd Prize: Doug Terpsma (TRU) - The “Topographic Signature”: Using Fine-Scale Soil Variability and Topography for Predicting Available Soil Water in Hot, Dry Douglas-fir Ecosystems
Every year, the PRSSS accepts nominations and applications for the Warkentin Prize, in recognition of Dr. Benno P. Warkentin. The Warkentin Prize of $750 will be awarded to a student or recent graduate that has published a peer-reviewed article or thesis in the field of soil science.
Past Recipients
2020
Zimin Li - Université Catholique de Louvain - UC Louvain
2019
Vaselios Kokkoris - University of British Columbia Okanagan
2018
Gabriel Maltais-Landry - University of British Columbia
and
Jacynthe Masse University of British Columbia
2016
Katelyn Congreves - University of Guelph