Two researchers land prestigious early career awards

The National Science Foundation gave UM an early Christmas present last month with the announcement that two of its promising young scientists earned Early Career Development Program grants.

The prestigious five-year awards went to Creagh Breuner and Vanessa Ezenwa. Both women are assistant professors in UM’s Wildlife Biology Program and Division of Biological Sciences.

A handful of UM researchers have earned CAREER grants in the past, but the University has never had two awardees in the same year or academic unit. Each year between 350 and 400 assistant professors nationally earn the awards, which honor promising teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education for their institution.

CAREER grants generally range from $500,000 to $1 million. Breuner will receive $800,000, and Ezenwa will get $715,000.

Breuner, who has worked at UM for a year and a half, studies interactions among unexpected environmental changes, behavior responses to those stressors and the hormonal mechanisms underlying those responses. She focuses on hormones that increase in the body when an animal becomes stressed.

She uses captive and wild sparrows in her research. She has studied sparrows breeding just outside Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada since 1997.

“It was really hard to sleep when I first heard about (the award),” Breuner said. “It’s an amazing amount of money to get as a young investigator, and the recognition has been a little crazy. It’s just a fabulous feeling.”

Employed at UM for two and a half years, Ezenwa studies the causes and consequences of variation in parasite infection in wild animal populations. Her project will examine how gazelle behavior in Africa influences parasite transmission. She also will study whether parasites potentially influence the evolution of mating-system variation in these animals.

Ezenwa’s study area is in Kenya, where she did her doctoral research. “I’m obviously very happy about (the grant),” she said. “Now I will have the money and the time frame to build up my research program.”

Both scientists will involve undergraduate researchers in their work. Breuner will recruit four students to assist her each spring in California. Ezenwa will take one student to Africa with her each year for a field course and to do research projects with undergraduates from Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya.