MU Fisheries Student Wins State Award for Research

MANSFIELD, PA—Mansfield University Fisheries students Cooper Barshinger, Josh Grassi, Zach Horner, Cory Sauve and Andrew Wilson, accompanied by Assistant professor Greg Moyer, attended a joint meeting Pennsylvania and West Virginia chapters of the American Fisheries Society (AFS) held at California university of Pennsylvania on February 9-10.  The theme of the meeting was “Shared Waters.”Cooper Barshinger with the Cooper Award and his research.At the meeting, Barshinger won the AFS’s outstanding research honor, The Cooper Award. He presented a poster of his capstone research project that assessed the influence of trout stockings on a minnow species. Barshinger’s article will be published in the next Pennsylvania AFS Chapter Newsletter.

Moyer presented a talk entitled:  “Applications of environmental DNA methods for the inventory and monitoring of aquatic species” that summarized his ongoing research at Mansfield University pertaining to DNA based methods for detecting and aquatic organisms.

All the students engaged in a networking session with professionals in the field from all sectors including private organizations and state and federal government agencies. Students also had the opportunity to enjoy conversations and interactions with meeting attendees a social event.

To learn more about the Fisheries program at Mansfield, go to mansfield.edu/biology