Graduate Student Research Awards
This year’s call for applications is now closed.
IWRS Student Research Award in Sentience
Purpose: The Insect Welfare Research Society aims to encourage graduate student scholars engaging in evidence-based, theoretically-grounded research on any aspect of insect or understudied invertebrate sentience (defined broadly as subjective experiences, including pain). This award will be given to a graduate student whose research has the greatest potential to make a substantive contribution to our understanding of sentience in these taxonomic groups.
Nature: This $2,000 award shall be given annually to a graduate student conducting research related to insect or understudied invertebrate sentience. Award funds can be used for research/scholastic expenses or as stipend assistance to support the student as they work.
2023 - Becky Hansis-O’Neill, University of Missouri, St. Louis, USA
“Drug-induced affect as a discriminative stimulus in the common eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens)”
IWRS Student Research Award in Welfare
Purpose: The Insect Welfare Research Society aims to encourage graduate student scholars engaging in evidence-based, theoretically-grounded research on any aspect of insect or understudied invertebrate welfare. This award will be given to a graduate student whose research has the greatest potential to make a substantive contribution to our understanding of welfare in these taxonomic groups in farmed, wild, or research contexts.
Nature: This $2,000 award shall be given annually to a graduate student conducting research related to insect or understudied invertebrate welfare. Award funds can be used for research/scholastic expenses or as stipend assistance to support the student as they work.
Forms relevant to both awards
Prior Award Winners
IWRS Student Research Award in Sentience
2024 - Catherine Macri, Sorbonne University, Paris, France
“A multidimensional analysis of a fear-like state in honey bees.”
IWRS Student Research Award in Welfare
2024 Winner - Jesi Gibbs, College of Charleston, Charleston, USA
“Do shrimp feel pain? Behavioral and neurobiological responses to a noxious heat stimulus in the snapping shrimp, Alpheus angulosus”
2023 - Urja Thakrar, Royal Veterinary College, London, UK
“Farming shrimp in mangrove forests: Does it improve their welfare?”