PSGB Student Representative

Current Student Representative: Katharine Balolia (University College London)

As the PSGB Student Representative, it is my job to raise student issues within the society and provide information that might be useful to students interested in primatology. If you have any comments, questions, know of any courses or opportunities that may be relevant to students or would like further information about joining the society as a student member, please feel free to contact me.

Every year, the PSGB Spring Meeting is meant to provide a platform for postgraduate students to present an oral or poster presentation.
Most years, there are small grants of £50 available to students, predominantly for those presenting at the conference. Student members wishing to apply for a grant should indicate that they wish to be considered when submitting their abstract/registration form.

The PSGB would like to announce that the first Charles A. Lockwood Student Prize was awarded at the Spring Meeting in Bournemouth as a way to acknowledge Charlie's time spent on the PSGB Council, as well as the thought, dedication and inspiration he provided to his students. The winner of the 2009 medal was Claire Santorelli from the University of Chester, who gave a talk on "Vocal traditions and acoustic variation in wild spider monkeys from two geographically disparate communities in Mexico and Costa Rica". The PSGB Student Poster prize was awarded to Emma Nelson from the Univeristy of Liverpool, for her study on "Predicting the social systems of extinct hominid taxa using digit ratios". Their abstracts can be found on pages 16 and 29 of the abstract book here.

For any meetings, I am happy to help to organise affordable accommodation for students who are attending. Please contact me if you are interested, or have any other questions relating to the meetings.

Email: student@psgb.org

Napier Award for best PhD thesis

The Napier Memorial Medal was instituted by the Society in memory of its founding President, Professor John Napier, following a bequest to the Society. The medal is offered every two years to a new primatologist in order to provide encouragement through the public recognition of their work.
To be eligible for consideration candidates must: (1) be either a British subject or a foreign national who has completed a PhD at a UK institution of higher education; (2) have had the final submission of their PhD after June 2007.
Candidates should normally be nominated by a member of the Society, but they may be nominated by their PhD supervisor even if he or she is not a member. The nomination should consist of a CV (including and abstract of the PhD thesis and full list of publications) and two letters of reference (one of which should normally be from the external examiner of the PhD). The last deadline for nominations was 1 August 2009, the next deadline will normally be in 2011. For more details go here.

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Facebook Group

The PSGB students now have a Facebook group were matters such as travelling to meetings and other student issues can be discussed. If you are a student member and would like to join simply search for PSGB on Facebook and make a request to admin.

Napier Memorial Medal Winners (established 1991):

1991  CHRISTOPHER PRYCE: Endocrine and social correlates of maternal behaviour in callitrichids
1993  MARTA LAHR: The origins of modem humans: A test of the multiregional hypothesis
1995  CARLOS DREWS: Psychological warfare and the management of relationships between male baboons
1996  NICOLA KOYAMA: Reconciliation behaviour in wild Japanese macaques
1999  MARK COLLARD: Morphological evolution of the hominoids and papionins: implications for palaeoanthropological cladistics
2001  RUSSELL HILL: Ecological and demographic determinants of time budgets in baboons: implications for cross-population models of baboon socioecology
2003  SUSANNE SHULTZ: Of monkeys and eagles: predator-prey interactions in the Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire
2005  CORRI WATT: Facial attractiveness among rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta): manipulating and measuring preferences for conspecifics' facial characteristics.
2007  ANNIKA PAUKNER: Secondary representational abilities in nonhuman primates (Macaca nemestrina, Cebus apella)

Charles Lockwood Medal Winners (established 2009):

2009  CLAIRE SANTORELLI, University of Chester: Vocal traditions in communities of wild spider monkeys

Best student poster presentation winners (since 2009):

2009  EMMA NELSON, University of Liverpool: Using digit ratios (2D:4D) to predict the social systems of extinct hominids