Four students receive Dr. Sergiy and Tetyana Kryvoruchko Graduate Scholarships

Four graduate students in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology in the University of Toronto's Faculty of Arts & Science have received Dr. Sergiy and Tetyana Kryvoruchko Graduate Scholarships. 

The Kryvoruchkos began supporting students from the Faculty of Arts & Science in 2022, originally with the aim of fostering academic excellence and preserving Ukrainian cultural heritage. Since then, the pair have extended their generosity to additional awards, most recently to master’s and PhD students in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology.

The four awardees are:

• Sarah Babaei – a first-year PhD student working with Assistant Professor Nathan Lujan at the Royal Ontario Museum, Babaei is interested in factors that accelerate or inhibit speciation in diverse freshwater ecosystems, research with direct applications for conservation and management.
• Chris Carlson – a third-year PhD student in the lab of Professor Megan Frederickson, Carlson studies reciprocal evolutionary changes that occur in mutualisms (mutually beneficial interactions between species), using mathematical models to explore open questions in mutualism theory
• Robert Masaki Hechler – a fourth-year PhD student working with Associate Professor Marty Krkosek, Hechler is a quantitative ecologist interested in the causes and consequences of unstable population dynamics for ecological stability. His work aims to further our understanding of how complex ecosystems operate.
• Nora Kroeger – a master of science student supervised by Professor Marc Johnson at U of T Mississauga, Kroeger combines theories of island biogeography and evolutionary biology to study how plant patch characteristics affect insect diversity and abundance.

Read the department of ecology and evolutionary biology story